


You Again

by eadunne2



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Captain America AU - Fandom
Genre: AU, Angst, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, Flashbacks, Fluff, Kidfic, M/M, Mutants, Mystery, Plot, Prosthesis, Sweet, shameless flirting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:23:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eadunne2/pseuds/eadunne2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A daughter and writing for one of the most influential publications in the world keeps Steve from thinking too much about the skinny kid he loved, the one he couldn't save. </p><p>But what if he could save him?<br/>And what if Buck never stopped thinking about him either?</p><p>--</p><p>Steve can’t move, can’t breathe, can barely see as Bucky stands to greet him. He looks older. Obviously. Because he’s aged a few years. Because he’s alive.<br/>“I thought you were dead,” he gasps.<br/>Bucky smirks. “I thought you were smaller.”<br/>“If this is some fucked up trick -”<br/>“What the fuck kind of trick -”<br/>“They never found your body! You were gone, Buck! Deceased.”<br/>But he’s not. He’s got a tan. And a metal arm. And those eyes… “Well that’s weird,” Bucky says flatly. “I sure don’t feel dead.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!
> 
> I hope to have most of this posted by the end of next week.  
> The rating might change because I don't know how much sex??? Tell me how much to sex, please. 
> 
> Any errors or tag suggestions or love, please <3 and comment. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. This story is beating me the fuck up, in the best way possible.

He’d been so angry.

It lurks in the periphery of his mind, unfulfilled and nagging, like waiting to land in a bottomless pit. 

It’s still there, but calmer now. Softer. With her.

She’d opened her eyes in his arms - ice blue crystal, alert and brilliant, and Steve had only ever known one other person in the world with eyes like that. 

He’d named her Jamie.

\--

Something near the foot of the bed wriggles. The top sheet, also, begins to slide in that direction, but Steve is still half-asleep and doesn’t realize until goosebumps roll out over his back that he’s now lying uncovered in the center of his bed. 

“Jaaaaames…” The nickname rolls out as a growl.

A small, serious voice says, “Dad, Shmallow is hungry.”

“Shmallow, huh?” He tries to tuck his arms beneath his torso to keep them warm. 

“She told me.”

The arm trick works and he begins to drift off again, until someone lands a knee cap in his kidney. “Oof. Are you sure it’s not Jamie that’s hungry?”

Jamie sprawls across his back, lining her little legs up with his butt and burying her nose in his neck. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, huh?”

“I want broccoli.”

“For breakfast.”

“Broccoli for me, eggs for you.”

“How ‘bout broccoli and eggs for both of us.”

“Just eggs for...Shmallow.” She yawns against his neck.

They both fall asleep.

He wakes again with a sweaty kid stuck to his back and there’s a brief threat of nap related meltdowns, but eventually they get to the kitchen where he makes a whole pot of coffee for himself, a stupid amount of broccoli (the kid would eat a damn forest if he let her), some eggs because he feeds his child balanced meals thank you very much, and everyone ends up settled at the table. Marshmallow howls plaintively ‘til he drops a few clumps of eggs to the floor. The damn cat is higher maintenance than the kid. 

Not that he’s complaining. Before Jamie, the omnipresent crater in his chest had begun to feel disturbingly familiar. Almost friendly. Then she came along, kicking and laughing and breaking all his shit. 

He glances over to make sure she’s not going to burn her tongue, but she stops with the precariously full fork halfway to her mouth, realizing - “We get more broccoli today!”

Steve chuckles. “That’s right, baby girl.” Their next door neighbors own a market nearby - the Roger’s family fueling station for vegetables and coffee.

In wriggling excitedly, Jamie grips her fork too tight and bends it in half, sending broccoli tumbling across the table. “Woops.” She carefully straightens it again. It’s warped. Steve thinks it’s charming. “I want to talk to Mr. John, and show Artie and Ollie my book.”

“You can. Have to eat breakfast first, though.”

“You too, Dad.”

Too close. He winces but nods amiably, making sure she sees him take a bite. The cat gets the extras while she’s engrossed in drawing faces with the ketchup left on her plate. 

He doesn’t eat much these days.

\--

~Ten years ago~

“You gotta eat, Stevie. You’re too damn skinny.”

“Fuck off, Buck.” It’s early as hell and he’s only had half a cup of coffee yet. 

“Won’t. What’ll I do if you die of malnourishment?” 

“Dude, when I kick the bucket it won’t be because I didn’t finish your leftover fuckin’ french toast.”

Bucky kicks him under the table and Steve smacks him right back. It’s good, though, as close to perfect as skinny little nobodies like him can get; They’d spent the previous afternoon smushed together on the floor of their room playing video games and laughing, and when Buck woke in the night remembering too clearly, Steve had tucked his friend under his chin, into his arms, and murmured quiet stories into his hair ‘til they’d both fallen back asleep. 

“Fine. Be like that. Sarah makes the best damn french toast on the planet, but go ahead and -”

“I’ve already eaten three pieces! What’dya want from me?”

A warmer voice says, “Well for one thing, you two could clean up the language.”

“Sorry Ma,” they mumble in unison as she sweeps through the kitchen, a sweet-smelling tornado kicking up dusty brown coffee grounds from the counter in her wake. Sarah Rogers is beautiful, a brilliant nurse and an exceptional parent. She also happens to have a sailor’s mouth and an inconveniently adamant sense of justice. Steve adores her. Apple not falling far from the tree and all that.

“I’m working a double tonight.” She takes Steve’s face in hand to kiss his brow, valiantly ignoring the fact that he’s flicking Buck with bits of toast, then ducks around him to smooch Bucky’s forehead, too. “I realize asking you two to stay out of trouble is unrealistic, so how ‘bout we just shoot for no one ending up in my ER tonight, huh?”

“You got it, Ma,” Steve chuckles while Bucky nods more solemnly. He’s been the one to drag Steve there too many times.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

She watches the boys slumped hip to hip at her kitchen table, mouths sticky with syrup, shoving and shit talking, and smiles as she shoulders her purse, wide-eyed and all-knowing, like she can see something more. 

\--

“Jamie, please hold still.” 

“Soldier is thirsty.”

“I believe you, and we’ll get him a drink just as soon as I’m finished braiding your hair.”

“He’ll die of dehydration.”

“Wow. Jeez. That got serious real quick.”

“Serious business, Dad.”

He loops the elastic around the end of her braid a few times and plants a kiss on top of her head. “Ok. You’re free.”

“Freeee!” she squeals, barreling into the bathroom where she dunks her entire soldier under the faucet. 

He sighs. Go big or go home. Like father, like daughter, he supposes. 

“Ok sweet pea, let’s talk about bodies.”

“‘Kay.”

“What do we need to remember?”

“Our muscles are strong so we have to be careful.”

“What kind of careful?”

“Gentle,” she says, coming out of the bathroom followed by a trail of drips from the bedraggled toy. 

“To…”

“People, babies, animals, vegetables, ummmm...cars…”

He chuckles. “Exactly. And if you need help? If you’re not sure?”

She rolls her eyes like the answer’s obvious. “Just ask you.”

“Perfect. Got your book?”

“In my backpack.”

“Shoes?”

“On my feet, Daddy. Where are yours?”

Smart ass.

He tugs on his sneakers and grabs the cloth bags hanging by the door. Across the hall, their neighbor Marie eyes them suspiciously from her doorway as she fetches the paper, glasses slipping down her nose, but she makes sure to shove them up as she stares the whole way down the hall. She smells of powder and tea and something oddly similar to plastic, a distinctive scent that billows out of her door and clings to her clothes. Off putting. Like her.

“Marie is looking at us,” Jamie stage whispers.

“Marie is always looking at us,” he stage whispers back. Jamie giggles.

It’d be a joke, so hilarious that their weird neighbor is always snooping, except there’s not a doubt in Steve’s mind as to why, and discrimination isn’t something he’ll be able to shield Jamie from forever. The thought infuriates him, ignites the desire to fight or fuck or create some formless piece of art with jagged edges and harsh lines. Maybe later. 

Sometimes he wishes he’d waited a little longer to teach Jamie to read. She’s the happiest little sponge, soaking up everything, and as if proving a point, she gestures to a billboard along their walk. “Vote NO on the MUTT referendum!” The media’s having a field day with it - legislation that promises protections for people like them, but the vote is the voice of the public, and Steve’s not optimistic. 

“Don’t worry about them, love. They’re just mad.”

“‘Cause they can’t lift a tree!” 

“Ssh honey.” He glances around nervously. “Not so loud. But yeah. They’re just jealous.” He hates the apprehension that looms over him like poisonous gas. He used to be fearless - skinny and mouthy, sure, but indomitable. 

Then again, he used to be whole. 

“Heya,” comes a voice from the sidewalk, a man in tattered jeans and a coat with big brass buttons. He’s sweating bullets, but doesn’t seem to mind it, in fact, he adjusts the lapel tighter around his neck before standing creakily to greet them. “How are ya today?”

“Hey Mr. John,” Jamie says happily. 

“Where are you off to?” he asks, leaning down.

“The Market.” she informs him. “Oh, and here!” She brandishes the granola bar. 

Jamie asks a lot of questions, a lot of ‘why’s’. Some of them aren’t particularly tactful. But her why’s about John had led to a long and difficult discussion about poverty. Jamie couldn’t do shit about housing or insurance, but she could swipe food from the cabinet.

John accepts it with a hesitant smile of gratitude. “Thanks, Miss Jamie.”

“You’re welcome. We have to go see Artie and Ollie now, they have my broccoli.”

“I wouldn’t dream of standing in the way,” he chuckles and Steve offers an apologetic smile as they move on. The kid’s got the attention span of a stapler. 

Artie is waiting when they arrive, accepting Jamie’s tiny body leaping into her arms with a smile. 

“Hey kiddo!” 

“Dad got me a book, can I show you?” She’s shouting but Art doesn’t appear to mind, depositing her onto the counter next to the register.

“Can I leave her with you?” Steve mouths and Artie gives him a thumbs up, already immersed in Jamie’s explanation of Greek gods. 

Steve met Art and Ollie shortly after Sharon left him and a newborn Jamie alone to fend for themselves - a hellscape he’s mostly repressed. There had been more crying than sleep on the part of both members of the Rogers family. The sisters eventually took pity on them, or maybe just got tired of the screaming through the shared wall, showed up at his door, and the four of them rode out a forty eight hour crash course in parenting together. And their little family grew.

The market they own is clean and airy, wooden crates and bushels stacked neatly in rows, herbs hanging in bunches along one wall, and vines climbing up the other. There’s a small garden out back through a huge garage door, open today, letting sunshine in. It feels as close to home as Steve’s had in years and he breathes deep the smell of fresh and green and life.

“Nice pick on the book,” Ollie murmurs, emerging from the back with a basket of plums balanced on her hip and her silver hair spilling over her shoulder.

“Thanks for the recommendation,” he grins.

“How was the doctor’s appointment? Physical for kindergarten, yes?”

“Great. She’s small for her age, but Doc says she’s healthy so what’re you gonna do? Hated getting blood drawn but she did better with her shots than I thought she would.”

“Good. Glad to hear everything’s normal. I haven’t heard her up as often.”

He chuckles. “If I’d known how active her nights were gonna be I’d have put my room in that far room instead of hers.”

“I’d rather hear her talking to herself than whatever grown up activities you’ve got goin’ on.” 

“Right. ‘Cause I’m having so much sex these days,” he grumbles dryly.

Ollie shrugs. “You could be. If you wanted.” 

“What would my pick up line be?” he asks, neatly stacking heads of broccoli in the cart. “I’ve got PTSD and a five year old, wanna go out sometime?”

“You know we’d babysit.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“You should look. See if anyone -”

“Nah. Not my style.”

“You’re lonely.” 

He pauses in the process of inspecting tomatoes to stare at her incredulously. “Gee, thanks, Ol.”

She’s fiddling distractedly with her bracelet, delicate arrow charm on golden thread ‘round a willowy wrist. “Steve…” Too gentle. Concerned.

“It’s fine.” He turns brusquely away. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You’re drowning.”

He wonders how she always seems to know, and why on earth it doesn’t send her running.

He loves them both, Ollie and Artie, but they’re strange. Fraternal twins, but Artie is dark as night with brown hair that floats about her head like a halo. She laughs and speaks and stands like she means it, like she’s daring someone to tell her different. In comes in handy with her political leanings. Ollie, on the other hand, is the color of cream and honey, and her hair, straight and silver down her back, is like water, Steve thinks - almost musical somehow, and it suits her. There’s something about them, something Steve knows he’s missing. They smell different than anyone he’s ever met, like lightning or wind. They know his mind before he speaks it, and Jamie’s mentioned a time or two that she thinks they’re “magical”, but despite the mutual interest in activism, neither of them have ever mentioned anything about being Mutt so he leaves it alone.

He finishes shopping lost in thought, and by the time he gets back to the counter Jamie is galloping Artie’s the little wooden deer necklace across her collarbones and singing loudly about it. “Hey goof,” he murmurs, ruffling her hair.

“You’re the goof.”

“I am not.” 

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

Artie grins. “Alright, children, shall I ring you up or send you to the garden to duke it out?”

“Ring us up, please,” Steve says. “I’m not sure I could take her.” Jamie sticks out her tongue.

It’s going to be a long day, but he feels better now, settled by routine, and his daughter, and their friends. He wonders if Jamie knows how often she saves him.

On their way out, they help another customer to her car, too many groceries for a body with too many years, and the lady is so thankful that Jamie gets excited and spends the whole walk home raving about the idea of a superhero who helps people carry things too heavy for them - pianos and anvils and refrigerators. He wonders if there’d be a surcharge for carrying memories.

\--

~Nine years ago~

“You want help with that?”

“Nope.”

“Looks pretty heavy.” 

“Buck, I swear to god -”

“Alright, punk, calm down, I’m just askin’.”

“You don’t have to treat me like a fuckin’ invalid,” he mutters. It’s a sore subject for the boy with many ailments. Also, his arm is aching from carrying the bag Bucky’s trying to take off his hands, but he wouldn’t admit that for a million dollars and a girlfriend.

“What’dya wanna do this afternoon?” Bucky murmurs, kicking his locker closed.

“Eat pizza and steal the neighbor’s internet to watch porn.”

Buck shakes his hair out of his face and throws an arm around Steve’s shoulders, voice reverberating from his ribcage into Steve’s body. “Hard yes to the pizza. And you’re not gonna use the Internet for porn, you’re gonna use it for homework, you fuckin’ dork.” 

“Hey,” Steve protests. “I could use it for porn.”

“Not saying couldn’t. Just that you won’t.”

He’s not wrong. Steve doesn’t need anyone’s internet to get off on what he’s into most. Who he’s into most.

“Hey James,” someone drawls from down the hall, so syrupy sweet Steve gags on it.

“Hey Corinne,” Buck grins, and removes his arm to turn around. The hallway is suddenly much colder. “How you doin’?”

Steve sighs and turns away. “I’ll see ya outside, Buck.”

“Wait - Steve!”

“No worries, man,” Steve mumbles, waving him off. 

Bucky’s on the swim team, a different social stratosphere, and Steve’s used to finding himself occasionally displaced. Buck’ll catch up with him eventually, shoot the shit with his buddies at the front doors before the two of them head home together. 

Bucky wouldn’t know about his teammate’s cruel, extracurricular game; He’s too busy flirting in the emptying hallways or charming his teachers into giving extra credit after class to ever be around to witness the way his “friends” comment incessantly on anyone dumb enough to leave the building through the main atrium.

“Wow, Rogers. Think you’re gonna look ten years old forever?”

Steve ignores them, bored. It’s an old one, an easy target. He’s small. He’s always been small. Another kid throws the word ‘fag’ his way, but that’s also a non-issue, a colorful version of the truth. Chin up, keep moving.

He almost gets through the gauntlet, one whole breath of relief in his lungs before - “Fucking Mutt.”

He wheels around so fast his backpack slides off. Their target is a small girl, one of his classmates who’d presented recently, telekinesis, very useful, and Steve is impressed with how well she’s been handling the attention. Society doesn’t know what to do with mutants, there are so few of them, though Steve suspects if people were really honest there’d probably one in every family, at the very least. He’s heard it runs genetically, though there’s hasn’t been much research one way or another, and he certainly hasn’t presented yet, so maybe it skips a generation.

“What did you say?” he growls.

Standing before this cloud of hornets in letterman jackets, the girl doesn’t look the least bit frightened. She looks exhausted, weary to the point of numbness, and Steve understands the way these things weigh on the soul, scrape away at a once bulletproof shell until all that’s left are scabs ripe for picking. “Danielle,” he says, deathly quiet, and she glances over. “Why don’t you head on home, ok?”

She smiles at him, dark circles beneath her eyes curving up with the tops of her cheeks as she walks towards him. 

“You wanna come with?” 

“Nah. You go ahead.”

“I could throw ‘em across the parking lot…” she offers, and they share a chuckle but she doesn’t wait for an answer, leaving across the superheated blacktop. He’s already retracing her steps.

“You need to keep your mouth shut,” Steve spits up at the chest of fucker who’d spoken earlier. 

“Why?” He’s laughing. Steve hates him.

“You don’t know what she’s been through. What she’ll go through for the rest of her life dealing with assholes like you.”

He shrugs and a guy over his shoulder says, “Who cares? She’s a freak.”

Steve lands two solid punches before someone’s got his arms pinned behind his back and a fist cracks across his jaw, gnashing his teeth together.

It hurts but frankly it’s a relief, too, penance for his weakness, not strong like Buck or his father...a head full of big ideas and dreams, and no beef to back it up.

Whoever hits him next is wearing some sort of watch or ring, it splits Steve’s cheek over the bone and he feels warmth begin to leak from the sting of it. Using the troll restraining him as a counterbalance Steve drives a knee up into one guy’s nuts, gets another dude in the solar plexus before someone grabs his foot and holds that too. He stares at them coldly, not really seeing, but if they’re going to hit him, they’re going to look him in the eye.

The tallest of the group steps forward with a smile that’s more teeth than pleasure, and reels back. He’s huge. Steve braces.

There’s a sharp noise and tall guy falls, revealing Bucky swinging on another kid and it kicks Steve into action. Twisting then going limp, he manages to wriggle free and gets the guy who’d been holding him in the balls, not bothering to watch him drop like a stone.

Someone’s got Bucky’s arm, he’s struggling so hard Steve’s afraid he might dislocate it, so he whips his backpack into the other guy’s abdomen, giving Bucky enough of a distraction to smack him across the face. Steve dodges another punch, ducking low then surging up, cracking his shoulder under another kid’s jaw, who then stumbles backwards.

“Steve!” Buck shouts, just an edge of a panic to the tone and Steve whirls around to see the captain charging at him. 

Lightning fast, Bucky blocks the blow, one palm intersecting the unthrown punch with such force that the other boy’s knuckles crunch. Buck uses that hand as leverage, and lays him out.

“You do that shit a lot, Rumlow?” Bucky pants. “Fuck with guys that can’t defend themselves?”

“I can defend -”

Rumlow cuts off Steve’s protests, shoulder twisted at a nasty angle where he’s knelt at Bucky’s feet. “She’s a fuckin’ Mutt. I said as much.”

“She?”

“The girl your precious boyfriend got his ass kicked for. You try’na get in her pants, Rogers?”

“Fuck you, you piece of shit, I don’t -” 

Buck lays a hand on Steve’s arm and he quiets. These are Bucky’s people. He’s not trying to fuck over Buck’s chances for something good. The swim team could mean scholarships, opportunities. Get Buck out of this place. Somewhere better.

“I quit,” Bucky says.

“What?” Rumlow and Steve say in chorus.

“I quit. The swim team. Fuck you. Bye. Have fun filling that space at regionals.” He grabs Steve by the elbow and drags him away.

They walk in silence down crumbling sidewalks. Bucky doesn’t touch him again except to wipe away a drip of scarlet that’s trembling on the edge of Steve’s chin and flick it to the ground. The spot on his face feels warmer, after.

Wrestling with the sticky deadbolt on their front door delays them, especially in their haste to get away from the new neighbor side-eyeing their battered state, but eventually they kick their way in and drop their bags beneath the kitchen table. “Stevie. That was not the smartest move.”

Stung, Steve retaliates, “Hey. They can say what they want about me, but they shouldn’t be fucking with Dani. That Mutt shit…’s not ok. I’m not sorry for it, Buck.”

“Wait, what’d that say about you?” 

Steve aims for a casual expression as he sorts desperately through explanations that will minimize the damage. “You know,” he shrugs, running a paper towel under cool water and using it to wipe at his face. “The usual.”

“No.” Buck’s voice is grit rasping around the words. “I don’t know.”

“It’s nothing, man.” 

The towel is plucked unceremoniously from his fingers.

“Steve,” Buck says, turning him roughly by the shoulder so he can wipe the blood from Steve’s face. “What did they say?”

It’s interesting, Steve thinks in an absent sort of way, how he can stare down his enemies as they disassemble his body, but he can’t look his best friend in the eye to tell him the truth. “Skinny, bastard, fag, nerd. A list of my most attractive qualities,” he jokes, but it turns into a wince as Buck grabs him again and wipes over the cut on his cheek. 

“How often?” Jeez, what is going on with Buck’s voice? 

“Every once in awhile.”

“Once a week? Month?”

“Eh…”

“Day?”

“Sometimes…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“Because people get scholarships for the kind of record you have! Because you get along with them, and you’re a jock Buck, that’s how it works! They’re your team!”

“You’re my team!” he roars and Steve is surprised to find his own eyes stinging. “Steve, if I’d have known, I’d have quit months ago. Years. I’d have kicked their asses one by one and posted their busted-ass mugs on Instagram.” It feels surprisingly good to hear, though Steve would still rather Buck had the opportunities that swimming afforded him. “You’re surprised.”

“I -”

Bucky cringes away, wiping his own knuckles on the same bloody towel before throwing it in the trash. “How could you think…”

Steve’s not sure why he feels the need to apologize but it’s there nevertheless, a twinge beneath his ribs. “Buck. I’m sorry.”

Buck shakes his head. “No...shit...I am. If you had to keep that from me, I must’ve been doin’ a shit job as your friend.”

“NO!” It’s so inappropriately loud even the air in the room seems startled. “No,” he breathes. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever - Buck. That’s not what … fuck.” In need of motion, Steve rummages through the freezer for something to serve as an ice pack. Peas. Perfect. Bucky’s not responding and it’s weird how this conversation hurts worse than getting his ass beat. Whacking the bag on the counter to loosen them up he says, “Buck. I didn’t want you to know. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it, but I was...embarrassed.” That would’ve been the most difficult sentence he’d ever uttered if they hadn’t been to each other’s father’s funerals. “And I wanted to you be a part of something great. Something that’d get you outta here.”

“What about you?” Bucky asks, impossibly small, and Steve turns back to him with a classic grin ‘n’ shrug combination, crushed hope dressed to the nines in bravado.

“What about me, Buck? I’m invincible.”

“Stevie…” he breathes. Almost tears. Almost more. Almost something that’s gonna get Steve’s heart broken, and he’ll take on Goliath any day of the week but he can’t do this. 

He chucks the freezer-burned bag at Buck’s head and the kid catches it one-handed, knuckles looking almost good as new. 

Bucky has barely a scratch on him, but Steve is roughed up enough to warrant some attention. Their system is solid though, necessary for two smartasses with rudimentary fighting abilities and poor anger management skills. Steve slides onto the kitchen table while Buck rips open bandages and alcohol wipes, lining them up along the edge. He begins to clean the split in Steve’s brow. 

The antiseptic stings but Steve barely twitches, watching the concentration on Buck’s face, the way his tongue slips out to antagonize his split lip. Steve feels his face begin to heat, has to stop watching, plucks the stack of mail from the table instead. 

Jaw next, easier to bandage but just as painful. The alcohol sears, scalding then cold. Steve tenses silently, trying to ignore how loudly their breathing fills the kitchen.

“Take off your shirt,” Buck grumbles, stepping back, and Steve blinks.

“Why?”

Bucky sullenly points to the dotted line of blood in the fabric along Steve’s ribs. 

“Oh. Huh. Didn’t notice.” Steve shucks his shirt, tosses it into the sink, and opens the electric bill. Lower this month. Good. They’ve been trying to keep the AC off unless Sarah is home. Miserable, but worth it. 

He’s through the water bill next, stacking the pages neatly, when he notices Buck is hanging back, still feet away. “Wha -?”

Buck’s staring. 

Maybe he’s angry, he’s frowning and flushed, but there’s also this glint in his eye, heat and focus and Steve swallows audibly. “Buck?”

With a halting step the other boy returns to stand between Steve’s knees, still staring down at his newly bare skin. There’s nothing much to see, just roughed up flesh and bone and muscle, and that bit of blood that ruined his shirt. With a careful fingertip, Buck traces a bruised rib and Steve gasps so loudly that they both startle. 

“S-sorry,” Bucky mutters, reaching for another antiseptic pad but Steve shakes his head. 

“‘S fine.” He shivers.

“I don’t like s-seein’ you busted up.”

Steve chuckles. “I could put my shirt back on if that’s easier.”

Bucky swats his leg hard enough to sting. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Steve has to look away.

“Yeah, yeah.” He grins at the letter in his hand, to S. Rogers with a return address he’s been expecting. “Oh shit.”

“What’s that?” Buck murmurs, cleaning the gash on Steve’s side.

The envelope is huge, big enough to fit a sheet of cardstock without folding, and Steve knows without a doubt what’s in it. “When we’re done,” he says, putting it off.

“Good to go then. You’re finished. Take it easy, that’s a nasty bruise on your rib, but other than that -”

“Your turn.”

“Huh?”

“Your face.” Steve gestures absently, then cleans his fingers with a wipe. Split lips are surprisingly painful, reopening when you least expect it, peeling and drying out and aching something awful. “Here.” He squeezes some ointment onto his pinky. Bucky’s eyeing him dubiously. “Come ‘ere, idiot.”

When Buck doesn’t move, Steve grabs his shirtfront and yanks him forward. “Mouth. Open,” he commands, and Bucky complies, eyes focused on Steve. Buck’s lips are incredible, made for kissing, and Steve tries real hard not to think about that fact as he works, carefully dabbing ointment over the cut, wincing in empathy as his friend twitches, eyes flicking up to meet Buck’s, and he realizes that neither of them are breathing. “Done,” he whispers and Bucky jerks away as if burned.

“Thanks.” He sounds winded. “What’s - what’s in the envelope?”

“Oh!” Steve hops down from the table, clearing away the litter. “You’re probably going to kill me.” 

“Why?” Buck asks, immediately suspicious. It’s stressful business having Steve Rogers as your best friend. 

“I submitted one of your stories to the New Yorker.”

“You WHAT?” Buck thunders.

“The one about that camping trip we took like, ten years ago?” Steve swipes the wrappers off the table into cupped palm. “It’s great. Like, legit amazing.”

“Steve!” The rage in his voice finally stills the perpetual movement. “What did you do?” It’s a whisper this time, and somehow that’s more terrifying.

Thing is, Steve banked on this reaction when he’d mailed the story out. Buck’s been writing since they were both knobbly and snot-nosed, and over the years the compositions have developed into masterpieces. Only Steve gets to read ‘em, and they both pretend like he doesn’t. Every once in awhile, Buck’ll just leave a notebook open on the bed, and Steve never says anything, just hugs him extra hard afterward. But Bucky’s also been dropping hints for over a decade at a dream as a writer, maybe for a newspaper, his own novel, and on his college applications he’d applied to be an English major with a focus in creative writing. He’s got the chops. And he’s being a wimp about it.

“Look. You can hate me if you want. I know it was a huge breach of trust,” Steve murmurs, plucking the envelope from the pile of mail and turning to face the music. “But you’re amazing. And I’m not just sayin’ that ‘cause we’re family. It’s true. You always have been. And if you don’t put your shit out there, no one else is ever gonna know what I know. I was wrong,” he adds. “Before. When I said you’re a jock, like your life had been easier because of it. I don’t - you’ve been through everything but easy. But it’s built you strong and smart and you’ve got a lot to offer, Buck, if you’d let yourself. A lot to give.”

Buck stammers, furious, gives up, and snatches the envelope from Steve’s hand. The sound of angry footsteps are followed by the slam of their bedroom door, and Steve sighs. He’d hoped it wouldn’t turn out like this, but it’ll be worth it. The New Yorker will take the story. They have to, and if they do, the other ten literary magazines to which Steve has already submitted Bucky’s work will too.

He’s too exhausted to fret about it. The bloody shirt ends up in the trash (easier than explaining the laundry to Sarah), the first aid supplies are put neatly away, and then he collapses on the couch and falls asleep. 

He wakes to a warm hand on his chest. Buck, kneeling beside the couch looking rattled and bright eyed, manic and joyful.

“Buck?”

“They took it.”

“Huh?”

“The New Yorker.” He holds out the acceptance letter Steve had known would be in that envelope, and in one rushed breath says, “They - th - they’re gonna publish it.”

“‘Course they are, Buck,” Steve yawn-smiles up at him and Buck’s breath catches strangely, a laugh or a sob and he drops his forehead to Steve’s chest to hug him sideways. It’s an awkward position but it feels like heaven, and no one mentions the salty droplets left on Steve’s collar bone.

“Thanks, Stevie.”

Steve runs a hand gentle hand through Buck’s hair. “Told you so.”

\--

When he was small, his world was in color. Afremov, Renoir, bright and unapologetic. Sketches in colored pencil pressed so hard the lead would break. Slapdash.

It’s less so now.

Perhaps that’s why the dream had been so jarring. He doesn’t notice color much these days - not like he used to. Not since coming to Brooklyn and trying to drown the memory of feeling whole. He remembers drugs and haze and flashes of fights, and nothing was right again, after. Jamie’s hair is gold, her eyes are blue-gray. Everything else is shades of shadow and ink. 

In the dream, though, the world was vibrant, verdant, so rich and pure it hurt, woke him right the fuck up and not gently either, kicked him weeping out of bed and sent him to the one room of the apartment Jamie isn’t allowed in.

His latest project, a silhouette of the skyline outside their living room window, is leaning smudged and smoky against the base of the easel, and he shifts it over to the wall before tugging a crisp sheet of drawing paper from the giant folio on his desk and clipping it up. 

His face feels stiff with salt.

Charcoal. He begins.

He’s not aware of what he’s drawn until the very end, until icy aqua is staring back at him from a beautiful face sketched from ash, accidental color in a world Steve keeps very purposefully gray, but here are flecks of the ocean, of the sky, tides that could knock him out of his mind and he might never wake up. 

He touches the face and the image blurs, shimmering. His hand slides through the lines, fingers smearing through them. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps.

He jerks the paper free of the clip and drops it behind the desk.

Jamie is already up and dressed, thankfully, when he locks the door studio door behind him, but he’s just a shell right now and his daughter deserves better, so he calls one of the few people that can put him to rights.

“Ma. Hey.”

“Hello, sweet boy.”

Her voice slides through the receiver and down his spine, like a soothing hand through his hair, like clean laundry and jackets warmed on radiators. He can hear the dishwasher running behind her, and some kids outside her window.

“How are you?” 

“Rough night.”

“I’m sorry, hon. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really, no. Just wanted to hear your voice.”

“Well. Here I am kiddo.” 

“Grandma?” Jamie shrieks.

“Yeah James hon, give me one second and then I’ll hand her over.”

“She sounds very awake for six a.m.” Sarah observes.

“You know it.”

Steve watches his daughter careen around the living room, flying her teddy bear like an airplane. She stumbles, catching herself on the corner of the wall and some paint flakes off but Steve’s Mutt-proofed the place, at least as far as the Rogers’s strengths are concerned. The edges of the walls, handles of faucets, hinges on doors and cabinets, as well as the internal structures of most of their furniture are now either plated in or made of High Specific Strength Steel, stronger than titanium, and much cheaper - a necessary investment he’d discovered shortly after Jamie was born.

“Well you didn’t sleep through the night until you were twelve, so serves you right.”

He chuckles. “Jesus, let’s not talk about karma, she’s perfectly healthy and no one’s tried to kidnap her yet, so let’s just keep our fingers crossed that messed up sleep schedules are where our childhood similarities end.”

“Steven Grant Rogers getting snatched from our lawn is not some fucking joke.”

“Hey, you kicked that guys ass. ‘S not like he got away with it.”

“Damn right. I’m enjoying my flashback to kicking that fucker in the balls.”

“Oh god.” 

“How’s work?”

Thanking every deity under the stars for that subject change Steve says, “Good. Busy. We just published the exposé on that experimental facility. Got a few lawyers and politicians on our side. Hoping we might get it shut down for good.”

It’s a dangerous business he’s in and they both know it, but Sarah says, “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. You’re a good man.”

“Thanks, Ma,” he murmurs shyly, unsurprised by the emotion creeping into his throat. There’re only four people in the world he’d cry in front of - two of ‘em are dead, one is destroying his living room, and Sarah knows how much it means to him that she’s proud, that the rest would be too if they could see him now. 

“Let me talk to that wily granddaughter of mine.”

Steve hands off the cell with a gentle reminder, “Fluffy fingers, right Jay?” and she takes it, imagining her invisible gloves cushioning the device. They go through phones like nobody’s business, but Steve’s working on designing a case that might be Jamie-proof.

The two of them talk while Steve feeds Jamie and Shmallow, chugs three consecutive cups of coffee, and gets both their bags packed. Sarah keeps Jamie entertained the whole car ride to the office with stories about the animals that keep getting into her basement and Steve can’t help but listen and grin along.

“Ma. Thank you. I appreciate the long distance baby sitting.”

“I know sweetie. I appreciate you calling.”

There’s silence on the other end while Steve wrangles Jamie out of the car seat and plunks her on the pavement of the garage with her little pack so he can get his own crap, phone jammed between ear and shoulder. 

“You take care of yourself, you hear me?”

“Yes ma’am, loud and clear.”

“Good man. I love you, sweetheart.”

“Love you too,” he murmurs, and he and Jamie drag their belongings into the freight elevator, ascending to his office.

“No one followed you in,” Wanda informs him as he steps out of the elevator and Jamie takes off to find her favorite of Steve’s coworkers, where he’s sure she’ll spend most of the day. 

“Into the abandoned factory? Ya think?”

“Be nice, Steve-o,” Sam grins from behind him.

“Why?” he snarks, dodging a stapler Wanda throws at his head. Her eyes are shimmering reddish, but the set of her brow is teasing. He winks at her. She rolls her eyes.

“Rogers!” Barbara calls, wheeling out of her office, resplendent with her long red hair, black tank top and torn jeans.

“Yes ma’am?”

“What’dya got on your plate today?”

“Surveying reactions to the exposé. Researching the next project. Coffee. Napping under my desk. Pretending like I’m not napping under my desk. Anything else you need?” 

She shakes her head and leans back in her chair. “Nope, sounds good.” Sam snorts and Jamie’s giggles spill across the layout. “I see the smartest member of the Rogers clan is joining us today.”

“Yes ma’am.” 

“If you need any help on your research, let me know. Oh, and Steve? Check your email,” and she wheels away. 

Nat shuffles in next carrying a cup of coffee the size of her head. They bump shoulders sleepily as they head to their desks clustered along the wall of windows. Wanda and Pietro have an office space to themselves, walled off and tucked next to Barbara’s office, but aside from the work spaces and a small kitchenette, the rest of the long, raw wood floor is open the full length of the building. It gives the place an airy feel, necessary for their long shifts and strange skills.

Natasha throws her stuff at her desk and flops to a carpet behind her chair to stretch, and Steve joins her as Sam unfolds his wings and flutters around the room a few times.

“You sleep at all, man?” Sam calls from near the rafters, sending golden sunlight shimmering across the fine vane of his feathers. 

“Quit shouting,” Steve mutters. 

Sam lands gracefully pokes them both in the stomach with the tip of each wing. Steve grunts. Nat giggles. “You have circles under your eyes and charcoal all over your forearms.”

Observations. Factual. Not to be argued with. Steve sighs.

“Weird dreams.”

“Weird how?” Natasha murmurs.

“Colorful.” Sam and Nat share a concerned look they think they’re being sneaky about. “Quit it, you two. I’m just saying, I usually dream in grayscale. I’m not hallucinating. Yet.” He waggles his brows playfully and it sort of works at defusing the tension. Sam huffs and Natasha uncurls and they all settle at their workstations, though “settling” looks like Nat cross legged on her desk, Sam sprawled in his chair with all limbs and wings extended as he reads updates on his computer, and Steve standing in front of his monitor. Some days it’s hard to hold still. They’d struggle with a regular day job, he thinks. 

They’re lucky to be here, where they can be who they are, all Mutts except Natasha, but she’s also a genius, polyglot, martial arts expert, so she keeps up.

Barbara’s not technically a Mutt either. But Barbara Gordon is the exception to every rule. 

It’s the least important thing about her, but Steve thinks she’s stunningly beautiful, wheeling around the office with humor and confidence, easy in her body. She’s a brilliant hacker, among the top five in the world, but she’s also read libraries of books, plays piano and violin, speaks more languages than Steve knew existed, loves good food and great booze, and she’s a millionaire to boot - the outcome of the lawsuit from the accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She used the money to start The Oracle. 

For all her humor and philanthropy, she’s angry too - for the things she’s lost, for wrongs unpunished...It makes Steve love her all the more, the bond of a shared wound, holding them up, driving them forward.

One of Steve’s bigger projects came out the day before, an exposé on a company accused of experimenting on unwilling Mutts. Thanks to Barbara's hacking lessons he’s got everything by the victim’s actual names; patient codes, cash flow, even big name donors are carefully detailed in the report. The crew proof read, fact checked, and argued over the piece for so long that by the time it went up Steve wasn’t even nervous, just grateful that the fucking thing was finally off his chest.

Years ago Barbara had helped him set up an unconventional newsfeed to gather updates from the sites he checks most frequently, and it’s the first thing he logs into each morning. Publications like the NY Times and Chicago Tribune, of course, but also FBI databases, messages between hacked emails - not the least bit legal, and he can’t be bothered to give a shit. 

The feed has blown up.

 _‘Oracle Exposes More Gov’t Corruption’ ‘Are Mutt Rights On The Way In?’ ‘Crime Wave Imminent” ‘Freed Mutts Flood The Labor Market’ ‘Where Will They Go?’_ and then _’Mutt Experiment Shut Down!’_

“What?” Steve whispers, disbelieving. “No way…” 

An article posts to his feed and he clicks on it, speed reading. The released Mutts had been clean and healthy, but many had suffered severe memory loss, and there were preliminary reports of their powers being used for business transactions - alchemists forced to turn cheap metals to gold, healers expediting the recovery of famous politicians, a rare biomutant speed growing experimental breeds of plant and animal. Twenty two Mutts. Released. All of them. 

“Guys!”

Nat yawns, nursing her coffee. “What? What happened?” 

“They closed it! The Feds shut down the program. Like - legally! Officially!”

The whole room shifts at once, Nat bouncing to her feet, Sam fluttering over from his desk, arms outstretched to slap congratulations into Steve’s skin, and Wanda appears from out of fucking nowhere, smiling, which almost never happens. “Good work, Steve,” she murmurs.

“No, this was all of us. We -” He turns back to the article on his desktop, speed reading. “‘Twenty two Mutts released, facility employees brought in for questioning, possible indictment pending’… We - shit, fuck, christ, we did it,” he breathes. 

Sam pokes Steve in the back of the head. “Dude. Are you gonna cry?”

“Maybe,” Steve retorts, faux-defensive, and they all laugh, setting the emotion-laden moment free. (He does. Later. Briefly.)

“Amazing work,” Barbara adds, regal and calm behind them, and Steve can see the way the team swells. 

“Thank you.” He means it. 

“I’ll need your help - I’m reaching out to locals, asking their assistance in finding temporary housing for these guys, but...I’m so proud of all of you.” It’s genuine, but Steve sees the shift in her posture, weariness setting back in, and he’s suddenly nervous. 

“There’s more,” he guesses, correctly if Barbara’s expression is anything to go by.

“Fuck,” Nat says.

“Yeah.”

Steve steps forward. “Tell us?” 

He and Sam and Nat pile into Barbara’s office, a conference room with a spread of several computers on one end operated remotely from Barbara’s chair. The whole room is her baby, efficient and flashy as fuck. A weapon, Steve thinks, in disguise. Like it’s creator.

Wanda appears on the table moments later, with Pietro holding Jamie balanced on his hip.

“Hello Daddy,” she says sweetly as he sets her down. 

“Having fun with Pietro?”

“He gave me a puzzle!”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“Defusing a bomb!” she beams.

“Really man?” Steve gripes, but Pietro just shrugs. 

“It wasn’t live. Besides, she’s faster than a third of the FBI bomb squad,” he says with a smirk. 

Steve’s not gonna pretend like it’s not badass. “I’m proud of you sweetie. That’s very cool.”

“Thanks Dad. Barbara, can I come to this meeting?”

“Yeah, kiddo,” she smiles, loading different files to different screens. “But it’s big kid stuff today, so if something bothers you, you gotta say something, ok?”

They’re good with her. All of them. They talk to her like she’s a person, let her into their cubicles, especially when Steve’s losing his mind. She loves them right back, Pietro especially, who’s sarcastic bordering on arrogant, but for Jamie, he melts.

“First of, I want to reiterate, I’m incredibly proud of the work you’ve done.”

“Yeah, yeah boss lady. Give us the bad news,” Sam says.

“Fuck you, Sam,” she says cheerfully, and Steve gave up long ago trying to keep their work language kid appropriate. “Almost fifty years ago the UN and the American government developed a new department dedicated to Mutt research. On paper it sounds good, right? There’s no medical data on you, no long term research, not even a survey of types of powers out there.”

Nat shifts in her chair. “So who fucked it up?” 

“A lot of people,” Barbara replies. “But the real shit starter was a guy named Zola.” She loads a picture of a froggy looking dude, and Steve frowns at him, already pissed.

“What a great villain name,” Pietro adds, and Wanda throws a pen at him, hands free, of course. “Ow! What?” 

“Next time it will be push pins,” she warns.

“Yeah, he lived up to it. In the sixties he started using draft and census information to single out Mutts, create files on them, track them down.”

“Track them?” Steve asks. “Like, followed them?” There’s no way. This judicial system is unfair and inefficient, but it’s still America, and they’re still citizens. 

But Barbara answers, “Worse.”

“How. How could it possibly be worse?”

“You have to understand, the reach of this program was disturbingly wide. They had hundreds of employees at their peak, and even now -”

“They’re still around _now_?”

“You interrupt me again, Steve Rogers, it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

“Sorry.”

“They put employees, spies in place within the Mutts’ lives, as neighbors, bosses, teachers, friends. People to keep an eye out. Justified in the name of science, I suppose. They kept files on the test subjects, location, employment, family, and most importantly whether that family was Mutt, too.”

Realizing, Sam blinks up. “Their kids.” 

“Yeah.” 

Too close to home. Steve extends a hand towards Jamie, but she’s a step ahead of him - as always - crawling across the table top to climb into his lab, rubbing her face sleepily against his chest. He wraps her up tight. 

“Zola wanted to know how the mutated genes were passed on, when the kids presented, and as some of you might’ve noticed, the trend is that the child’s power tends to be stronger and more diversified than the parent.”

“Ok,” Wanda says. “He was awful, but wouldn’t that information be useful? Such a blatant infringement on privacy but … did he hurt anyone?”

Barbara sighs deeply and Sam mutters, “Woop, there it is.”

“Yeah. Several years after the project began, well into the second generation of study, Mutt kids started disappearing.”

“Ow, Daddy,” Jamie murmurs. “Too tight.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” he breathes, quickly loosening his embrace. “I’m sorry.” He feels bad, but distantly, through the fog of memories this shakes loose. 

“Where did they end up?” Pietro inquires, uncharacteristically gentle in his concern. 

“Some of them were found in the facility we just got shut down.” 

“Some. What about the rest?” Nat asks.

“We don’t know, but they’re sure as shit still gone.” Barbara says. “And Zola died, almost a decade ago.”

The sheer fucking number of people involved in this project is sick. Barbara wasn’t kidding - hundreds of people would’ve had to work for this guy, comfortable enough in undermining constitutional rights of their fellow citizens that they literally infiltrated people’s lives. It makes his stomach turn. 

“We obviously have our plates very full right now. The referendum, the exposé, but …”

“This is important,” Steve finishes. 

Silence hangs heavy until Wanda breaks it, her soft serious voice curling around syllables she wasn’t raised to speak. “We will keep looking.”

“It’ll be a fight,” Barbara cautions. “Whatever we find is going to make a lot of powerful people very angry.

“Fuck ‘em,” Sam spits, and Natasha nods.

“It might get bloody.”

“Only for them,” Pietro says, and Steve thinks it sounds like an oath.

\--

~Eight years ago~

“You’re bleeding on your shoe,” Steve points out absently.

“Shit.” Buck stops in the middle of the hallway to wipe at the blood pouring down his shin, rinsing his hand in a nearby drinking fountain. “You know I coulda patched this up just as well my damn self.”

“Yeah, but I needed an excuse to get out of gym.”

“Oh I’m your hall pass am I?”

“Oh baby, you’re much more than that,” Steve teases, taking Buck’s arm sweetly then laughing and shoving him away. 

“You’re an ass,” Bucky grins, cheeks pink from running around like an idiot.

“I appreciate you takin’ up the clumsy crown, though. Usually it’s me bleeding all over something.”

“Or someone. Like your poor best friend.”

“That was one time.”

“Per month.”

“Screw you.”

“I just might -”

“Boys?” The nurse pokes her head out of her office. “Can I help you?”

“Bucky got his knee torn off.” Steve gestures to the limb, still caked with blood.

“Oh dear. Come in.”

 

She plops Buck down on the paper-covered table and Steve takes a seat, praying she won’t send him back to class.

“Alright James. What happened?”

“Running. Fell. Asphalt. You know.”

Nurse Amber nods sagely and Steve rolls his eyes. 

She adjusts the pin on the collar of her scrubs and turns all the way in her chair to face him. “Do you have something to add, Steven?” 

“No ma’am.” He only barely manages not to crack up at the goofy-ass look on Bucky’s face. 

Nurse Amber takes forever, but she’s nice enough. They’d know her for years as the nurse at their middle school, and she transferred to their high school midway through their freshman year, so she’s familiar.

As she tosses the bloody alcohol pads into the waste bin she asks, “Is this what your knee looked like when you fell?”

Buck quirks a brow at her. “Uh, yeah?”

“It’s just...that was an awful lot of blood for such a small wound.” The phrasing sits weirdly in the room, even Steve can feel it - not quite right on his skin, and Bucky continues to look nonplussed, but his voice is marginally cooler as he shrugs and says, “Yep. Dunno what to tell ya.”

She stands quickly, snapping the moment in two, and smiles. “Alrightly, let’s get you a bandaid.”

It goes quickly after that: spray, salve, bandage, and Steve ignores dull embers of jealousy burning at the back of his throat. He’s more efficient at patching Buck up, he knows it, knows how to distract him with a joke before antiseptic hits open skin, knows that Buck always clenches his jaw right there at the end, a little twitch of pain. When the nurse is finished with him Bucky spends a stupid amount of time retying his shoe, then the other, trying to get them evenly tight for so long that Steve groans and gets up to wait by the door. 

The nurse settles and pulls out a file, ‘James Buchanan Barnes’ written in tiny, neat script across the top, and towards the back of the drawer Steve can see his own name, his own folder. He knows what it says. 

Asthmatic. Weak heart. Terrible eyesight. Susceptible to illness. Potential for an autoimmune disease...inconclusive test results…

So many doctors.

It would have been torture except Buck always showed up to give him a hard time, smuggle in candy, flirt his way into extra time after visiting hours were over. He didn’t seem to hear Steve’s protests, (“You should be at school, Buck”) and ignored his eye rolling. Steve’s glad of it. 

“Hey,” Buck murmurs. You ok?” He’s standing in the hall staring expectantly at Steve still leaned in the doorway. 

“Sorry. Shit. What?”

Buck squints at him a little funny, but all he says is, “Wanna skip? Head home early?”

“God yes,” Steve sighs. 

They overheat on their walk over, and end up on the couch in the living room, right in front of the air conditioner, sprawled with legs up on the coffee table. 

“Hey, I like that picture,” Steve murmurs, gesturing to the newly framed photo on the desk, and Buck nods. “Yeah, my I found it a few days ago in one of my Dad’s albums. It’s cool, right?”

“Can I get a copy?”

“Yeah, of course man. I’ll get some doubles printed this weekend.”

“I can pay for it, just -”

Buck waves his hand. “Nah. Stop.”

“Thanks.

It’s their Dads, his and Bucky’s, arms thrown companionably around shoulders at a barbecue not long before they shipped out. In the background a little Bucky is getting the shit beat out of him by an even littler Steve armed with a pool noodle, and they’re both sunburned and skinny and laughing hysterically. So many things to love about that picture.

He doesn’t look much like his dad, but there’s some resemblance, in his nose, the unruly way his hair refuses to lie down in any particular direction. His dad was strong, burly, the gift of super strength making him an indispensable soldier. Not immortal, though. 

“Wish I’d present already,” Steve grumbles, only barely attempting to conceal pain with irritation. He knows Buck can hear it anyway.

“Why? What’s the rush to turn into the kind of person who gets their ass beat in the street for no reason.”

“Already there, Buck,” he reminds him dryly, and Bucky reaches a hand over to squeeze the back of Steve’s neck. “At least I’d be able to defend myself.”

“Think you’ll have strength like your old man?”

“What else would it be?” Steve shrugs. “How ‘bout you? Think you’ll present like yours?”

Buck looks uncomfortable. “I dunno man. At least that way I’d be able to fix your dumbass instead of draggin’ you to the ER all the damn time.” His dad had been a Healer, useful as an army medic, not that it helped him in the end.

“Aw, thanks,” Steve teases. “What would I do without you?”

Bucky cuffs his chin gently and Steve shoves him over to wedge his shoulder between the couch and his friend’s body, a cocoon of safety. They settle into the cushions, into each other, Buck folding his arms over his chest and closing his eyes before saying, “I got into NYU,” casual, like he’s commenting on the stock market instead of upending Steve’s world.

“That’s awesome, man, congratulations.” Steve feels his blood’s turned to needles, fear traveling inwards, heart-bound, efficient and acute, but then - 

“You should come with me.”

The agony stops because his heart does. “What?”

“You. Me. New York.”

“But I didn’t… I’m not -”

“You wanted to be a starving artist, man. New York seems like a damn good place to do it, huh?”

“Yes! Yes of course, I just… Buck…” He’s doing an impressively poor job at communicating. Bad even for him. “It sounds amazing. I just … I don’t wanna hold you back.”

“Steven Grant Rogers,” he says, facing him with ominous slowness. “You listen the fuck to me.”

“Christ. Ok.”

“You seem to think that I got it made, some fly as fuck kid with everything goin’ for him, that I’m-I’m just draggin’ you along for old t-time’s sake or some crazy shit.” Steve doesn’t interrupt - Bucky only stutters anymore when he's real upset. “And I’m just wondering when the fuck you hit your head hard enough to forget that I ain’t always been cool, or popular, or cute.” Steve disagrees with that last one, privately of course. “And the shit we’ve been through together...Fuck Stevie,” he sighs sadly. “Is that r-really what you think of me?”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice is getting louder, and strangled, too. “Well fuckin’ start! You’ve been my best friend for over a decade, idiot. It’s not a ten year mistake...or some fucking obligation. I _want_ you around, OK?”

” He’s shouting and Steve’s not even sure he’s aware of it, but he doesn’t care, joy and regret knocking around inside his fragile little skeleton sends him forward, throwing his arms around Bucky’s shoulders.

“Ok. Ok, Buck. Yeah. Let’s go to New York.”

A dozen breaths, his or Bucky’s, he’s not sure, then he feels his friend shift, surreptitiously wiping his eyes on Steve’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, Buck. I’d love that.” Steve replies, letting himself be as sweet as he’d like to be to Buck most days, just for a second.

“Cool,” Buck whispers, and they laugh, synchronicity born from a lifetime of living as two separate boys with one operative soul.


	2. Chapter 2

“Daddy?”

“Sweet Pea?”

“Will you tell me a story ‘bout my name man?”

Steve catches himself on the bathroom counter. 

The past is sensitive in so many ways. He never talks about her mother, for example, and why would he? They hadn’t really even been together - fuck buddies who met at a bar and lived within drunk-walking distance of each other’s apartments. A relationship built on physical attraction and convenience. She checked all the boxes: pretty, smart, interested in art and design, but it never seemed like genuine attachment, just surface, a stretch to connect. When she’d left, it had been a welcome parting, a last straggling link to the numbness he’d been chasing before.

One night when Jamie was about three, he’d had Artie come over and he went out. Tried to drink, tried to dance, tried to flirt, and none of it worked. His old life was...well… old, and he couldn’t go back. _You can never go back, Rogers. __He should know that by now._

So he’d come home and sat on the fire escape, idling on a glass of whiskey when Jamie found him - God knows how long she’d been up - with a picture in her hand. A photo of his dad, and Buck’s, long ago. A barbecue. A different lifetime. It had been at the very back of a drawer. Jamie has a way of finding things that need to be found.

She’d crawled into his lap and cradled the photo in her own, silent for so long Steve had time to watch the shadows trace her knees.

“Dis you,” she’d said quietly, pointing.

“Yeah, baby.” His voice had sounded like ash. Tasted like it, too.

“And grandpa?”

She’d seen pictures of him at Sarah’s house, over the mantel. “Joseph Rogers,” he’d nodded. Stick to the facts.

“Who dis?”

“That’s George Barnes, he was your Grandad’s best friend. They were our neighbors when I was growing up. 

She nodded, tiny and sagely as she said, “And?” and pointed to Bucky.

“That…” he’d said, “Was my very best friend in the whole world. You’re named after him.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah. His name was James.”

“My name is Jamie.”

“It is.”

“He my name man,” she’d said, and Steve had chuckled. He remembers that the gesture had hurt, like a sob, or the way your stomach keeps clenching even after you’re done throwing up. “I like him.”

That had been a surprise. 

“You do? Why?”

She’d touched the photo, so sweet and careful even though she was still getting used to her strength. Touched Grandpa and George and then just beneath Steve and Buck. “He looks nice.”

“He was.”

“He make you laugh.”

“He did.”

“He cute.”

Steve’s crying but this time the laugh isn’t painful. Buck would’ve loved hearing her say that. “He was, yeah. And a smartass.”

“How come he’s not your best friend no more?”

“He died, Jamie.”

Fear was a familiar part of his life. Stumbling anesthetized through years of his life and waking up to raising a kid on his own, watching her little chest rise and fall in the moon-bathed crib for days, weeks, months at a time, a little panic attack at the base of each breath. Every stranger could be a kidnapper, a bully. But in that moment he felt a very different kind of fear: He wasn’t ready to tell that story, to say Bucky’s name, not like that, and his chest had started to seize up and then -

Jamie thumped her head back against his sternum, reminding his heart to start again, and said, “Tell something nice. About my name man.”

He’d gasped so loud she’d startled up, patting his cheeks with clumsy gentleness. She didn’t tell him not to cry, just waited for him to talk.

And so he had, about a million beautiful things, that Bucky liked chocolate ice cream and video games and swimming. That he wrote really beautiful stories, but never showed them to anyone. That he threw his head back when he laughed, and didn’t sleep through nights just like her, and that his daddy and Grandpa Joseph used to take he and Buck camping and they’d stay up so late the birds would start chirping over their joking and making up futures and naming stars. 

He didn’t tell her he loved him. 

She leaves it alone most of the time, seems to understand the delicacy of the matter, but once or twice a year, when a peculiar mood strikes, she asks about him. It kills Steve, but he’s dying anyway, to talk about this punk kid he lost, so he never passes up an opportunity.

He comes out of the bathroom and she’s snuggled in his bed with the authoritative air of someone staking claim so Steve resigns himself to getting kicked in the spine for the rest of the night.

“What’dya wanna hear?”

She shrugs. “Everything.”

Shmallow jumps up to join them, curling onto Jamie’s lap and Steve watches as she strokes the orange fluff, gently. She’s better with her muscles now, careful with animals and people. She forgets, sometimes, with objects - toys or cars or cutlery, especially when she gets excited, but she knows the difference, knows living things are fragile. 

And how.

The cat licks her arm a few times then tucks its head into it’s paws and falls asleep.

“Once upon a time -”

“I thought this was a story about James?”

“It is.”

“Once upon a time is for fairy tales.”

“It’s that, too, Jamie.”

She gives him a mean side-eye, but waves him on. 

“Once upon a time, there was a skinny little nobody named Steve. He was sick a lot, spent a lot of time in hospitals. Kinda lonely.”

Forlorn, she murmurs, “Poor Steve.”

“He lived in a house with his parents on a street where there weren’t many other houses. No one to play with. Then one day, a truck showed up on the grass next door to Steve’s house. Workers got out and started to dig.”

Jamie frowns up at him, curious.

“More trucks showed up. A big one, with a chute on the back for pouring cement, a flatbed stacked with lumber, and pickups full of people in overalls. Steve watched from his window as they built a new house.

“At first, he wasn’t crazy about the idea. He’d been on his own for as long as he could remember, and what if the people who moved in were mean, or spoiled, or boring? But the last truck was a moving truck, and when the family came out of it, Steve knew it would be alright.” 

“How?” she demands.

“There was a man and a kid, around Steve’s age. Steve watched him help his dad unpack, watched him run near the treeline out back, watched him sit on his porch for hours playing with soldier toys. Finally one day, Steve went out to talk to him.”

Bucky’d been so small. Steve remembers that. Small for six and gangly for a kid that subsisted on hot dogs and peanut m&ms, and quiet. Shy.

Steve had said, “Hello,” and the other boy startled so hard he threw one of his soldiers to the dirt.

“H-hey,” Buck whispered.

“I’m Steve.” He’d offered his hand to shake and the kid stared at him for one, two, three long seconds before hesitantly offering his own. 

“Bucky.”

“Huh?”

“Buck - Bucky,” the kid stuttered. 

“Nice to meetcha. You wanna play?” He held up the toy tank and airplane, a gift from his Dad the previous Christmas, and the Bucky’s eyes lit up at the sight.

“Ok.” 

They perched on the sun-warmed porch. Steve offered up his plane. Buck handed over a soldier.

“What’s that?” Bucky asked as Steve accepted the toy, and they both glanced down to where he’d been pointing - a wristband from the hospital. Steve had forgotten to cut it off.

Sighing, he tugged at the plastic though he knew he wasn’t strong enough to snap it. Across the street the neighbor peered at him through the curtains, though she whipped them shut in a hurry. Figured. No one wanted anything to do with him. “‘S from the hospital.”

“How come?”

“They need to know your name and stuff.”

“No, how c-come you were in the hospital?”

Nervously, Steve answered, “I had an asthma attack.” 

“What’s that?”

“I couldn’t breathe.”

“That sucks. Do they g-give you medicine?”

 

“Yeah. In a mask?” He’d held his hand to his face trying to demonstrate, and Bucky’s eyes went wide with excitement.

“Like Darth Vader?” 

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Th-th- that’s s-so cool, man!”

“Thanks,” Steve had been pleasantly surprised at Bucky’s kindness, and the nice way his face crinkled when he smiled.

“I g - got some more soldiers in my room, wanna see?”

“Yeah,” The grin had grown, heat and light expanding his delicate ribcage. “Yeah, I do.”

Jamie’s asleep, unperturbed by Shmallow’s fluffy tail flicking her in the face. Peaceful. And Steve feels anything but, quite suddenly can’t bear it, can’t breathe, oh fuck, he’s gotta get Jamie safe before -

He gathers her quickly.

Artie’s already standing patiently in the threshold of her and Ollie’s apartment, waiting. Steve can’t quite look at her.

Shifting Jamie against his shoulder he begins, “Can I -”

“Yes.

A breath. “Thank you.”

There’s no judgement as she nods, holds out her arms, and in the shared space of passing his daughter over he flicks his gaze up into Artie’s, a weak expression of gratitude. The light from the hall glints against them, luminous and moonlike, and for a strange moment there’s a shadow of an animal, a deer or a stag maybe, dashing across the glass of her eyes and he whips around, startled. There’s nothing there. 

She straightens, Jamie firmly in her arms. 

“Take care of yourself, Steve.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ride out of the city is long, but it winks past in a haze. Too many memories. Wind whips cold through the car. He accelerates. 

The quarry was abandoned in the late nineties, and along with the dust there are huge chunks of stone hewn from the mountain littering the basin. He parks a little ways away, hops the fence, and scales down a particularly ladder-like section of the rock to land in a puff of white powder that weaves about his ankles like a weary ghost.

Fitting.

He finds a small boulder, not much larger that a bowling ball, and hurls it against the face of the cliff, unflinching as it shatters. 

Another. Bigger. Almost too big to wrap his arms around. He spins a few times, and lets it loose. It explodes on impact. Perfect.

Another. Shards flying outward at dangerous, unheeded velocities.

Another. It tears a callous from his palm. He doesn’t feel it.

Another. 

\--

~Seven years ago~

“What crawled up your butt and died?”

“Nothing,” Steve grunts from his place on the floor. Buck’s lounging against the wall on the queen bed they’ve been sharing for years, though it’s been feeling much smaller recently - increasingly difficult to fall asleep a foot away from someone he wants to kiss so badly the pain of wanting mimics illness. 

“Don’t believe you, punk.”

“Not my problem,” Steve responds, turning the page of his book calmly.

“Dude, your birthday’s comin’ up! You should be stoked!”

“Leave it the fuck alone!” he snaps, and immediately hurts, every muscle in his skinny little body held tense as Buck rolls of the bed, and Steve waits for him to leave, to walk out the door, to tell Sarah he’s moving out.

There’s a soft thump as Buck lands on his knees, but instead of standing he crawls over to where Steve is frozen and flops down next to him, digging an elbow into Steve’s ribs for good measure. “Stevie,” he says softly, frowning at the ceiling.

Steve’s immune to many of Bucky’s charms - he’s well aware of all the flaws that pair with them - but he’s never been able to resist that voice, probably because it’s not a manipulation at all, just genuine and concerned and a little hurt. Steve would die a hundred deaths before leaving that pain in Buck’s voice so he offers up the reason though it breaks him apart. “No one presents after eighteen,” Steve whispers.

From the corner of his eye he can see Buck’s mouth form an “oh”, and then the only sound is crickets arguing outside the window until he says, “Let’s go climbing.”

“Buck -”

He shoots upright, sudden kinetic energy. “No, man, you’re wound up tight. You need some fresh air and some loud noise.” 

“It’s the middle of the goddamn night,” Steve huffs.

Bucky eyes him. “Unless you’re chicken.”

“No! I’m just saying -”

“That you’re chicken?”

“Fuck you, dude I -”

“Bawk - bawk,” Bucky screeches and Steve shoves him. 

“Fine!”

Bucky grins like he’s won a damn medal.

They’ve been sneaking out across the roof and down the drainpipe for so long that they’d had to reinforced the bolts holding the metal to the siding to make it safer. It works like a dream - doesn’t even creak as they descend.

Bucky throws an arm around Steve’s shoulder and they walk quietly off the property and into the woods behind the house. Steve tries not to relax into the embrace - his friend has turned into a fucking brick house in the past year and Steve feels like he’s taking advantage when it means more to him than to Buck - but the warm muscle against his body calms him anyway.

The trains are so familiar that the boys barely hear them anymore, chugging steel and whistles echoing into the distance, sighing and sad. They know the tracks intimately, though, as a childhood jungle gym, trestle spitting the cars off a hill, across the river, and into a tunnel on the other side. They’ve spent cumulative years here in the valley, climbing the support structure, floundering in the shallows of the river, laughing and shoving and in one ill-fated incident, attempted to surf the rougher depths on an air mattress. It’s dangerous, and wild, but it’s theirs.

Silvery moonlight illuminates the path as they meander on, pointing out deer, an owl, a pile of fallen trunks they make a mental note to return to. The relative quiet gives Steve almost too much time to think, which is probably why he blurts out, “I’m proud of you.”

“For what?” Buck asks, hopping over a log blocking the path.

“For getting into NYU. For quitting the swim team. For bein’ a damn good friend. And I’m sorry. For bein’ a dick lately.”

“Thanks, Stevie,” Buck says shyly. “And I know. You get stuck in that busy brain of yours. But you’ll be fine.”

Steve laughs dryly. “Yeah. Well. We’ll see.” 

“No, you will. Whatever happens. Mutt or not. You’re gonna be famous someday. Just … gimme credit in your acceptance speech, ok?” he teases and Steve socks him.

“You’re delusional.”

“And?”

Steve hauls ass away from the hesitant vulnerability and back into familiar territory. They sprint through the tall grasses leading up to the river, shoving and tripping until they come to the huge concrete blocks that anchor the trestle supports. Scrambling, Buck gets up first, climbs a few feet of the rusty crisscrossed braces and perches there until Steve catches up, grinning and panting on the other side of the frame. Bucky smiles toothily back and shifts his weight, reaching across and covering Steve’s hand with his own.

The damp air sits heavy around them as Steve stares through the iron at his best friend, eyes widening. Sometimes he’s an idiot, forgets how fuckin’ beautiful Buck is and then gets smacked in the face with extremity of it - cheekbones and messy hair and one crooked tooth and collarbones peeking from his shirt collar...so glorious it hurts. Serves Steve right for losing sight of it.

“What?”

“Glad I met ya, Buck.” It doesn’t cover his guilt for being an ass, or for accidentally falling in love with his best friend, but it’s the truth nonetheless and here in the stillness it feels like a necessary admission. “Glad we...stuck together.”

“Stevie,” Bucky replies, eyes soft and sterling in the moonlight. “You gotta know I’m with you. To the end of the line.”

Steve makes strangled noise of gratitude and Buck starts to cant forward, than shakes himself, jerkily patting Steve’s hand, and begins climbing the beams, leaving Steve staring at the little vines and buds twisted around the metal where Buck had been clinging. Strange. He hadn’t noticed them before. Little flecks of rust stick to his palms as he follows, heart beating harsh in his chest, and he wonders if he accidentally took his inhaler too many times before they left. 

Bucky’s made it to the rungs beneath the tracks, sitting and swinging his legs and Steve joins him, yawning. 

“Wake up, punk.”

“I’m awake.”

“Yeah, yeah.” 

Calm falls in the valley, cradling the sound of breathing and the water below. Bucky links their elbows together (for balance, of course) and Steve thinks that if he doesn’t present, at least he’ll have this, the way his arm fits against Buck’s, the curves of their wrists aligning like puzzle pieces, the thinness of his arm making way for Bucky’s muscles. Maybe he will be alright. 

In the distance over the hill a train whistle wails and Bucky stirs absently. “Should we get down?” 

Steve turns to him with a knowing smirk and they shake their heads in unison declaring, “Nah.”

“Jinx!” Bucky caws as they both wriggle apart, giggling, to pull themselves into a standing position along the beams.

They used to do this all the time, perch below the tracks as the train screamed over them, thunder and sparks raining down, laughing maniacally, testosterone and youth sated by extremity as they stare into the face of danger and refused to break. It had been a while though. Busy with school. Applications. Fights. 

The rumbling of metal on metal makes it’s way to them, hands and feet vibrating with it, and Bucky begins to edge sideways towards the center of the trestle where you can really feel it shake.

“Careful!” Steve calls, but Bucky just flashes that roguish grin, shitty and playful and Steve’s heart clenches. He follows after, but slower. He’s not an invalid, but he knows his limits. 

The sound grows.

Buck takes a hand off one beam to give Steve the finger, and Steve cackles, shouting obscenities. He feels vibrant. Alive. In love.

A dull roar, and then not so dull, and then the train is whipping over them like an avalanche of steel and both boys lean back and bellow as loud as their lungs will allow. Steve turns, beaming, and Buck reflects it back like the sun, beautiful and wild and then there’s a weird tremor, an awful sound he shouldn’t be able to hear over the cacophony, but does, and the frame towards the center snaps.

“Bucky!” Steve howls.

Buck’s dangling from the beam by one hand, trying hard to swing up and get the other one planted somewhere, anywhere, and the train is shaking the trestle violently but Steve shifts over, letting go of one upright to lurch to the next one, closer to where Bucky’s dangling. “Grab my hand!”

Time frozen in moonlight. Buck reaches for Steve, really tries, up once, twice, and the metal bar he’s holding onto snaps. Too slow. Too much. 

“Bucky!” Steve screams and Buck looks up at him, growing smaller, expression shifting in that blinding infinity from terror to softness, sweet, just for Steve, and then he disappears into the dark.

\--

“Steve Rogers,” Sam drawls from the doorway. “You got a license to carry those guns?” He pokes Steve’s bicep for good measure and Steve blushes, pushing past him into Barbara’s house and inhaling the scent of garlic and basil and beer. 

“Shut up.” 

“Can’t, I’m afraid. Incurable disease.” 

“Oh my god.”

“Sam! Let Steve in the goddamn house!” Barbara calls. 

“He’s in the goddamn house!” Sam shouts back.

Nat hollers, “Come the fuck in, shut the fuck up, and sit the fuck down!”

The rest of the team is already there. Wanda and Nat enter the dining room with bottles of lager between each of their fingers and Pietro whips around them at lightening speed, setting the table. Steve adds his contribution to the field of dishes, napkin lined wicker piled high with garlic bread to go with the spaghetti and meatballs and salad.

It’s sort of like tetris, fitting six grown people at a small kitchen table with strangely broad legs, but they always make do somehow. Today, Nat has one foot slung across Sam’s lap with his wings draped over her and Steve’s shoulders, and Wanda and Pietro are, for all intents and purposes, sharing a chair. 

No one complains. No one minds.

Family dinners were implemented a few years ago when it came out that not a single one of them had any place to go for Christmas. An office of orphans. Barbara made it a weekly appointment.

The food is always incredible, the company even more so. Jamie comes along occasionally, or the team’s more trusted friends and fuck buddies, and though there’s a strict ‘no work talk’ policy, the nights usually end with passionate rants over forgotten board games and unforgotten booze. 

“Alright,” Barbara begins, and they all quiet. Each dinner starts out like this, a secular prayer of sorts. “I’m so glad you’re all here tonight, healthy and safe. I’m grateful for your gifts and your service, and I’m honored to be among you.” She grins beautifully. “Now dig in, motherfuckers.”

The stillness dissolves into chaos.

Food is passed, insults are hurled, Steve gets everyone a second round of beers before they’ve even finished filling their plates. Sam and Pietro argue over a soccer match and Wanda and Natasha are chuckling about something in a language Steve doesn’t speak. Barbara pats his arm and takes a swig of beer. 

“Thanks for fielding those emails. We got the last of the Mutts placed in jobs last night. A bunch are still looking for work and permanent housing but they’ve got something temporary, at least.”

“Yeah, of course. No problem.”

“How’s Miss Jamie?”

“Hyperactive. She’s been watching the Olympics commercials and trying to decide what sport to take up.”

Barbara laughs. “I think she’d be great.”

“Me too.” He chews a disgustingly large bite thoughtfully. “Though not entirely fair. Oh holy shit this is amazing.”

“I’m glad. Eat up.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Shut it, Rogers. You’ve lost like ten pounds in the past year, and you didn’t have much to begin with. And don’t give me some bullshit about Mutt metabolism. Even superhumans gotta eat and I don’t wanna have to find a replacement pretty boy with a savior complex.”

“I’m fine!” 

Wanda glances over. “Net vy ne.” 

“Huh?”

Tongue curling around the English syllables, Wanda translates with uncharacteristic gentleness, “You are not, Rogers.”

“Hey!” he protests. 

Wanda shrugs. “It’s alright. None of us are, I think. Pietro and I, certainly not. And our fearless leader,” she nods to Barbara. “Is just as broken as the rest of us. You know this.”

“I suppose,” Steve concedes to his salad. 

“Weakness is strength,” Sam says, and Steve realizes the whole table’s in on the discussion now. “And sometimes, strength is weakness, Mr. Muscles.”

He knows it’s the truth. He’s also so fucking done with this conversation. “You tryin’ to say I’m a pussy, Wilson?”

Sam barks a laugh. “If the shoe fits…”

Steve flicks a bit of tomato at him and they all chuckle, except Pietro, who’s face is focused, illuminated by his cell and Steve’s glad at least one person missed the latest installment of the Oracle family soap opera.

“No phones at the dinner table, Maximoff,” Barbara says as he finishes reading the text and clicks it locked.

“Sorry. Update from a source.”

“On what?” Nat asks.

“Spy cam technology.”

“Like bugging a building?”

“Yes. No. And. Independent contractors have been working to design everything smaller, easier to hide, and it turns out the government has had the tech the whole time.”

Wanda chews thoughtfully. “How so?”

“Agents were wearing cameras for years without anyone noticing - in buttons and glasses and necklaces and the like. Circumference of mere millimeters. Impressive,” he adds.

“So the text?” Barbara prods, now sucked in.

Pietro grins, flashing his teeth, and Steve shivers, profoundly relieved they’re on the same side. “Schematic. I’m going to make my own. See what all the fuss is about.”

“No spying on us,” Natasha qualifies, gesturing threateningly with her fork and Pietro shakes his head. 

“I wouldn’t.”

Barbara taps her fingers on the table top, thoughtfully. “I’d be interested in helping with the transmitters,” and Pietro nods. 

“Are you fucking dropping noodles on me on purpose?” Natasha interrupts, poking Sam in the chest.

Sam shakes his head solemnly but a snort of laughter escapes through his nose and Nat smacks him. “I will fucking end you, Wilson.”

“I know, I know.” He puts both hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry.” The apology is undermined by his giggling and Wanda rolls her eyes at them, grumbling, “Deti.” 

Barbara huffs and goes back to her food. “You’re not wrong, Maximoff.” 

\--

~Seven years ago~

They never found the body. 

Steve didn’t cry at the funeral.

Two days before his eighteenth birthday he woke up late in the afternoon, still drunk from the night before, and in pain from his pajama pants cutting angry red lines into his hips. Because he’d presented, from skinny teenager to musclebound man. 

He’d cried then, for two days straight. After, he got up, washed his face, packed a bag, kissed Sarah goodbye, and bought a one-way bus ticket to Brooklyn.

\--

Steve’s sprawled in an awkward pile of limbs on his studio floor, staring absently at his own reflection in a mirror leaning haphazardly against the wall. He does look thinner. Maybe Barbara was on to something. He looks older, too, than he remembers. Shadow lines at his eyes and around his mouth. He has Jamie to thank for the happy ones.

He wonders what she’ll look like when she’s older. Like Sharon? She’s got his full mouth and golden hair, but those eyes belong to neither of them. All her own. Just like her ‘name man’.

Steve thinks about him all the time, from a distance of course, so as to prevent a panic attack, but the soft monologue in his head often takes on Bucky’s tone quite clearly, or when he wakes in the night unable to breathe it’s effortless to remember a strong hand on his chest, pressing down, letting up. Life support.

Bucky’s hair had been getting long when he died, tumbling roguishly over his forehead, and Steve remembers giving him shit for it because it looked distractingly good. And Bucky’s face shape had just begun to change from boy to man, chiseling away the baby fat.

Absently, Steve unfolds himself from the rug and grabs a pencil. There’s sheet of drawing paper on the desk with some hand studies on it (fucking hands, they take a deal with the devil and a million awful prototypes to master) and he flips it over. Graphite to parchment. He begins.

Buck would laugh a lot, if he were alive. Steve would’ve made sure of it. Laughlines to match his own.

He fleshes out the face shape a little more, deepening the shadows at his cheeks and temples. He draws the hair long, pulled back into a messy bun at the base of Buck’s neck, pieces escaping. Thicker neck and shoulders. Strong. 

God. He’d been so beautiful before, but now, grown, he’d be -

“Daddy?” The littlest of knocks startles him like a cannon blast. “Time to go?”

“Yeah, Sweet Pea, gimme just a sec,” he answers, trying to keep his voice even as he shoves the drawing back behind the desk.

Her footsteps decrescendo down the hall and he drags ragged breaths in and out until he’s in control again. Nice and numb. With a smile, he emerges from the studio and closes the door firmly behind him. 

“Okie dokie artichokie,” he says, clapping his hands together and Jamie rolls her eyes, embarrassed, but she still giggles. Still his baby. He wonders for how long.

“Daaad.”

“Sorry, sorry. I know. We’re super serious.”

“No we’re not,” she chuckles, adjusting her little backpack over her shoulders and handing him the grocery bags. “You’re just weird.”

“Nu-uh.”

“Uh huh.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I know you are but what am I?”

Marie’s out in her doorway again today, frowning at them through her thick glasses and maybe it’s exhaustion, maybe it’s spending the morning with Bucky’s memory, but he finds himself suddenly bolder than usual. “Can I help you?” he asks with exaggerated politeness and she startles backwards into her house.

“Nice one, Dad,” Jamie says quietly.

It’s calm outside, and less oppressively hot than it’s been, easing the tension in Steve’s shoulders as they walk. He’s fine. 

“Do you think Mr. John will like my surprise?”

Steve had forgotten all about it. “Oh! Yeah, baby girl, he’ll love it. And I’m so proud of you, that’s a really thoughtful gift.”

She smiles radiantly. “Thanks. You give real nice presents too, Daddy.” 

Bemused, he shoved a hand in his pocket. “You think so?”

She shrugs, tucking her little thumbs behind the straps of her backpack. “You think real hard to give people presents. Like for Pietro’s birthday, or when Barbara was sick...you give people things they love,” and she emphasizes the word with a nod. “Just for them.”

He’s gonna be real pissed if he cries before seven a.m., so he grinds his jaw and takes one of her hands to squeeze. “Thanks for noticin’, baby girl.”

“Steve! Ms. Jamie! Where are you off to today?” John greets happily, rising to greet them.

“Hey Mr. John.” Jamie replies. “I brought you something.” She swings her backpack to the ground and rifles through it. Steve knows it’s a jungle of crayons and half melted fruit snacks in there, but she surfaces in one piece a few seconds later. “Here.”

She carefully deposits three dollars and thirty cents in a ziploc baggy onto John’s outstretched hand.

“What’s this, Miss?”

“You like coffee. I see you with a coffee cup all the time. Daddy helped me look up the price at the Grind and told me about taxes and how the government is taking our money and using it for dumb stuff -”

“Jamie,” Steve warns gently. Proudly.

“Anyway. A cup of coffee plus tax is three dollars and thirty cents.” Conspiratorially, she leans in. “I saved three dollars from my allowance, but I found the cents under the couch cushions. Dad’s pockets are always leaving good money in there.”

Mr. John’s eyes crinkle at the corners, a little damp, staring down at her with something like pain. Emphatically he sloughs his big coat with brass buttons and crouches down in front of her. 

“Miss Jamie. Thank you honey but I don’t deserve this.”

“Sure you do.”

He looks like he’s been struck. Shakes his head. “Sweetie…”

And Jamie, this magic child, just shrugs. “Everyone needs coffee. You should see my Dad without it, I mean you don’t want to, oh boy, it’s not a good -”

“Okay, that’s enough of that,” Steve interrupts, embarrassed. “Mr. John doesn’t need to know I’m really a monster until I’ve had my cup of coffee.”

“Three cups, Daddy,” she informs him calmly, and he and John both gawk for a moment, then burst into laughter. 

“We’ve gotta get going, our friends are expecting us,” Steve says and John nods. 

“Of course, sir.”

Steve lets Jamie get a few feet ahead of him before pulling out his wallet and handing John a five. “Get yourself some food to go with that coffee, John,” and follows his baby girl down the sidewalk.

The rest of the journey is predominantly Jamie skipping excitedly and rambling about everyone having coffee and doing nice things and “It feels good doesn’t it, Dad?” and he just watches her and nods, eyes sparkling. 

Artie and Ollie are both sitting on the register counter, feet swinging while Art braids her sister’s hair. “Hey kids!” she says.

“Hey, Artie. Hey, Ollie. I’m having a good day.”

“I’m glad sweetie,” Art chuckles. “Aren’t you always, though?”

Steve snorts, waiting for Jamie’s smartass response, but when he looks, Jamie is hanging back, head tilted. 

“What’s up, Jamie?”

The little girl draws a huge breath and when she lets it out she looks older. “Are you magic?”

The sisters exchange a glance and slide off the counter to lean against it, hip to hip.

“What do you think?”

Jamie approaches them, curious. She holds out a hand and Steve thinks it’s weird that neither woman goes to take it, but Jamie doesn’t reach for them either. It’s like she’s testing the waters, tiny fingertips fluttering, questing. She closes her eyes for a moment, and plants her little purple sneakers the floor.

For a moment, they’re outside time. Steve sees everything, hears it all floating at the back of his skull - Sharon, Sarah, his Pa, Bucky, french toast and doctor’s offices and art and blood. He gasps.

Jamie opens her eyes. “Oh,” she says quietly, staring.

“What?” Steve whispers. He doesn’t get an answer.

And then, as suddenly as it started, it’s over. Jamie shakes herself from the trance and grins. “I’m gonna go play in the garden,” she declares, and takes off down the fruit aisle, the three adults watching her go.

“Barbara called, asked us to take in one of your Mutts,” Ollie says, smiling at Jamie’s tiny retreating figure. 

“Oh yeah?”

“He’s helping out around here today,” Artie murmurs, gesturing to the garden. “Smart. Good worker. We might hire him on full time.”

“I’m so glad.” People settling in. Finding homes.

Ollie’s watching him, sweet secret smile at the corner of her mouth. “You should go say hey. I think he’s lonely.”

“Sure. Why not?” He leaves the bags by the register and heads toward the garden, pausing right before the doorway to hear Jamie’s little voice clear in the sunlight as she says, “What happened to your arm?”

Steve winces. Curiosity often overrides tact with her, a trait he hesitantly concedes may come from her father. 

But the man answers easily. “My old arm got hurt, so they gave me a new one.” The world stops spinning.

“It’s very cool,” she observes.

“Thank you.” That voice. 

“Can you feel it?”

 _My chest collapsing?_ Steve thinks.

“A little. I can tell if something’s touching me, if it’s hot or cold, if it’s sharp. And sometimes I think I can, but it’s just a memory.”

“Like a ghost.”

His ghost.

“Exactly.” 

Steve steps into the garden.

There’s a man on the stone bench next to Jamie, long brown hair tied up away from his face. He’s all sinew and scruff and purple rings beneath his eyes - Icy aqua grey. Just like hers.

“Daddy?” Jamie asks as the man says, “Steve?”

“Jamie, give me a hand, would you?” Artie interrupts from the garage door, and Jamie goes obediently, squeezing Steve’s hand as she passes. He manages to smile down at her, grateful. His little life raft.

But then she's gone and Steve can’t move, can’t breathe, can barely see as Bucky stands to greet him. He looks older. Obviously. Because he’s aged a few years. Because he’s alive.

“I thought you were dead,” he gasps.

Bucky smirks. “I thought you were smaller.” 

“If this is some fucked up trick -”

“What the fuck kind of trick -” 

“They never found your body! You were gone, Buck! Deceased.” 

But he’s not. He’s got a tan. And a metal arm. And those eyes… “Well that’s weird,” Bucky says flatly. “I sure don’t feel dead.” 

Steve stammers, “You - how - but -” 

“Are you having a seizure?” Joking. He’s not dead and he’s making a joke.

Steve’s sweating and shivery and his heart is beating so quickly he feels ten years old again, back at the hospital with Buck by his bed, Buck at school, at the kitchen table -

And right here in front of him. 

Something in his brain clicks, and Steve starts to laugh. Small at first, little gusts of disbelief and joy. Bucky responds in kind, wary but full of humor, shaking his head. “What…?”

“I just - ” Steve wheezes. He gives up trying to talk, instead closing the space between them to throw his arms around Buck’s shoulders, solid beneath the soft fabric of his shirt. Proof. 

The garden is still for so long, and then Buck whispers, “I missed you, too, Stevie.” 

Steve’s laugher is drawing in on itself, closer and sharper, but he doesn’t notice, feels nothing but the embrace winding around his back and the warmth of the body pressed against his own. “Christ. Fuck. So much, I missed you,” he gasps. “So fuckin’ much.”

There are flower pots hanging in neat rows behind them, vines spilling down to the plants below, twisting together like hands, and Steve watches the colors swim and blur as a sharp sound bursts from behind his teeth. He sucks it back in and manages to tamp it down, keeping the sound to a minimum as laughter is overtaken by sobs. His whole body aches with trying to hold still, trying to keep it together.

“What’re you doin’ here?” Buck sounds a little fucked up too, which is actually comforting.

“I live down the street. Ollie and Art are my neighbors.”

“No shit? They seem nice.” 

Pieces of the puzzle slide together with a sickening crunch. “You were in the facility,” Steve realizes, jerking back to look at Buck and uncaring that tears are still pouring down his cheeks. 

Bucky shrugs, turning his face away briefly. “Yeah.”

“For how long?”

“How long have I been dead?” he chuckles tiredly and steps away, an untethering, but then he swipes a knuckle across Steve’s cheek, clearing the wetness away, sweet and casual as you please. 

Maybe that’s why Steve doesn’t think to be suave about his answer. “You want it in years? Seven, plus two weeks. Twenty six hundred days as of yesterday.”

Buck eyes him carefully, and Steve gets the sense he’s fighting to keep his face neutral. “That’s a real specific count you got there.”

Steve shrugs and scrubs the rest of the wetness off his face with a hand. He can't process this, not here, now, exhausted and confused. He's sure of one thing though. “You wanna come home with me?”

“You move fast.”

“Jesus,” Steve snorts. “Not like that. I've got a kid for christsakes.”

Bucky’s got stubble and new lines near his eyes, and Steve wonders if they even know each other anymore. Bucky shoves his hands in his pockets. “You sure, Stevie? I’m not who I was. I’m a mess, and you’ve got no obligation to me.”

Steve growls at him. “You’re not a fucking obligation.” He sighs, forcing himself to relax. “And I’m not who I used to be either. But you...you said...And I…”

“You really should see someone about these seizures,” he teases. “Spit it out, Rogers.” 

“You said to the end of the line.”

“I did,” Buck says softly.

Steve almost doesn’t want to ask, but Buck deserves an out if he wants it. “Are we there yet?”

Joy sweeps Bucky’s face like a sunrise catching the world by surprise. “Not even close.”

\--

James Buchanan Barnes moves his one backpack worth of belongings into the Rogers’s apartment.

Steve sleeps through the night for the first time in seven years.

\--

Steve stumbles out of his room and promptly trips over a toy truck swaddled in a men’s shirt that doesn’t belong to him. Buck’s been with them for one damn day, has all of twelve possessions to his name, and somehow his shit is still fucking everywhere. 

It’s early enough that the air in the apartment is still cool but there are voices in the kitchen, and the sound of a glass sliding across the wooden table. 

“Thank you.” His somber little girl. 

“Welcome.” God, Buck’s voice sounds so good in the morning, rough and warm. 

“I got a question.”

“Kay…”

“You're a Mutt.”

“That's not a question.”

Steve peeks in at the scowl on Jamie’s face. “Daddy's right. You are a smartass.”

Bucky throws his head back and chuckles. “He said that?”

“Yeah. Before. When you were dead.”

The set of Buck’s shoulders changes but Steve can't see his face. 

“I wasn't dead, Jamie.”

“Dad was sad for you. To us, you were.”

“How'd you get so smart?” 

She shrugs. “My Daddy’s brilliant.” 

“That he is,” Buck murmurs approvingly, and Steve tells his heart to calm the fuck down. 

“And they say Mutt kids get stronger than their parents. So maybe my brain works faster.”

“They say that?”

“Yes. My turn. What’s your power?”

There’s a row potted herbs on their windowsill, a gift from Ollie, and Buck points to it. “Hand me one of those.”

Jamie complies, choosing to stand next to Bucky rather than return to her chair. He rolls up his sleeves and frowns at the little basil plant. “Everything that’s alive is made of cells.”

“Ok.”

“Those cells can grow and multiply, all on their own.”

“Ok.”

He touches the tip of of the stem with a gentle fingertip. “I just...speed it up a little.” The sprout begins to tremble.

In the early sun, Steve can see the tiny hairs on the plant, smell the savory basil rolling out across the room as the sprig lengthens, broadens, curling over the edge of the pot, writhing down onto the table, and then quite suddenly, all along the pedicel, white flowers burst into life. 

Jamie gasps in delight, but she’s not the only one. 

They both startle to where Steve has his hand clasped over his mouth. “Buck. That’s amazing.”

He smiles shyly, just half his mouth, and plucks a few flowers from the vine to drop into Jamie’s hand. “Here ya go, kiddo. You can eat ‘em.”

Her eyes go wide as she pops the flowers in her mouth, staring up at him like he’s magic. Steve supposes she’s right.

“French toast anyone?” he asks, trying to avoid the potentially lethal combination of beautiful daughter and recently undead love-of-life eating flowers and making jokes at his kitchen table.

Bucky’s affirmative gets lost under Jamie’s applause. “Yes! And more juice please.”

“Of course baby girl. Why don’t you wash up so you’re ready for breakfast when it’s ready for you.” 

“I’m always ready for breakfast, Daddy,” she says, but trots off to the bathroom anyway. 

“Quite a kid you got there,” Buck observes, pulling the eggs and milk from the fridge and handing them to Steve.

“Oh, thanks. And thanks. Yeah. She’s somethin’ else.” The plates in Bucky’s cybernetic arm shift so quietly Steve’s pretty sure he’d have missed if it weren’t for Mutt hearing. “I don’t have much to do with it, honestly. What she said about next generation of Mutts seems to be true.”

“You stronger than your dad was?” Buck asks carefully, pulling a bowl from the cabinet. 

“Um.” He’s not used to talking about his father. Hasn’t had to in years.

“Sorry, I sh-shouldn’t have -”

“No! No, Buck it’s fine. I’d like to -” He sighs, frustrated. “Yeah. I am. Far as I know his stuff was just muscular. Most of my functions are stronger. Sight, smell, sound, tissue repair, that kinda thing.”

“You are...fuckin’ huge, Stevie. I’m still kinda...if it weren’t for those eyes…”

Hesitant, Steve glances up from cracking eggs. Maybe he’s not the only one who can’t let go of a particular shade of blue.

“Anyway,” Buck continues brusquely. “That’s cool. I think mine’s like dad’s too, just with all cells, not just human.”

“That was amazing,” Steve acknowledges, trying to let go of any more hopeful assumptions as he nods back to where the basil plant is spread over the table. 

“Eh. It was nothin’. How can I help?”

“Bacon from the fridge. Please. And, oh shit, can you grab my phone? In my back pocket? It’s -” Buck sticks his hand into Steve’s jeans with irritating nonchalance considering how hard Steve is focused on keeping his thoughts appropriate. “Just - hit the - thanks,” he mutters as Buck swipes ‘answer’ and tucks the device between Steve’s ear and shoulder. “Hey Barbara.”

“Rogers. Heard you found yourself a new roommate.”

“Word travels fast I see.”

“Oh please. I know what I want to know. You think you got secrets from me?”

He chuckles. “I wouldn’t dare. Did you just call to harass me?”

“Sam’s got that on lock, so I’ll go easy on you. No, I need your help.”

“With?”

“Getting these Mutts placed. We’ve got temporary homes for most, but employment...It’s turning out to be more complicated than we thought.”

“Because people are bigoted assholes.”

“Yeah.” He wishes she sounded surprised. 

“I’ve got some connections in the community. Send me the info, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Already done.” 

“Thanks.”

“Thank you. Don’t worry about coming in, enjoy your weekend, do what you can from home.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And let me know how living with your dead best friend goes.”

“How the fuck did you -”

“No secrets, remember Rogers?”

“Barbara -” 

“Happy Saturday,” she says by way of a farewell.

Frustrated, Steve hangs up, washes his hands, and pockets the phone, rolling out the kink in his neck.

“Who was that?” Buck mutters, slicing bread far too quickly for Steve’s comfort, though the endangered hand is metallic so he should probably be more concerned about his knife. 

“My boss.”

“Really? You talk to your boss like that?” 

“Ah. Yeah. To be fair though, she gives it right back. In fact, she probably started it,” Steve adds, whisking some milk into the eggs.

“Damn. Where do you work?”

“The Oracle?”

Measured stillness halts the easy flow of the morning. 

“You work for The Oracle?”

“Yes?” 

“Like the publication that got me out.”

“Yeah.”

“So you know this Captain America guy. The one who wrote that article.”

Steve winces at his pseudonym. “Look, I was assigned that handle by someone else. It was their idea of a joke, ‘cause I look like...this…” He gestures awkwardly to himself. “What?”

Bucky’s mouth drops open, and the blue of his eyes is suddenly more vibrant than Steve remembers it. “I shoulda figured,” he says finally.

“What?”

“That it was you. That it’d be you to get me out. You always were savin’ my ass.”

Steve scoffs to cover the wave of pain. “Other way around, more like. And I didn’t get there too quick this time, did I?”

“Hey.” Buck’s voice is so close it makes Steve jump. “Stop it. They told me there’d been a funeral. That everyone thought I was gone. I wasn’t waiting.”

Tears spring to Steve’s eyes. “I’m so sorry Buck.”

“It wasn’t so bad, man. They fixed me up after the fall, gave me this arm and everything. And I had my own place in the compound...it wasn’t good. But it wasn’t as bad as it coulda been. And now...I’m in your kitchen. Free. Safe. Wearing shorts I stole from your dresser -”

“Hey - !”

“And making breakfast with you. Let the rest go.”

Steve shuffles his feet, accidentally bringing himself closer to Bucky. “Easier said than done.”

“I know.” Bucky’s flesh hand reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, warm and right. “But I’ll help you out as best I can if you let me crash on your couch…” 

Barking a laugh, Steve says, “You can stay on my couch regardless, so long as you stop letting my daughter dress her toys in your clothes and leaving them in walkways.”

“Hey man, the kid’s a free spirit. I’m not trying to stifle creativity.”

“Stifle my ass…”

“Stifle your ass? Is that some new thing I missed on the inside?” He turns back to stove, dodging the smack Steve throws and hiding an obnoxious grin. “What? I’m just asking…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come visit me at seasless.tumblr.com  
> <3


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey. Can you help me with something?

Buck yawns, rolling off the couch like a cat, impossibly sinuous for such a large man. “What?”

“Ok. First of all, you can totally say no. Like, no questions asked. Actually, you know what? Forget it, never mind -”

“Steve, Christ almighty, what?”

He clicks back to the current file. “We’re trying to find jobs for some of the other Mutts that got released with you. I’ve been going through their info but it occurs to me you might actually know these people. Who they are and where they might want to live and work. Would you...take a look?”

Steve watches Bucky’s face, clenched jaw, eyes dancing over the computer screen for a moment, then he breathes, “Yes. Please.”

Please?

“Great. So I’ve got the names in a spreadsheet, age, gift, interests, and another with jobs I know we’ve got available, Mutt business owners or friends of mine, that kind of thing. Would you look over the job list and then help me find these people something they might actually enjoy?” 

“Yeah, man. That’d be...” Bucky looks surprisingly moved for someone just asked to do office work, but reaches out to turn the screen towards himself just as Steve’s text tone goes off.

Sam: Hows it hangin

Steve: Just ask, man

Sam: hows the dead best friend 

Steve: not dead

Sam: and you?

Steve: also not dead?

Sam: smarta$$

Steve: who? Me?

Sam: 1 of these days rogers, u gonna talk about those feelings

Steve: Work calls gotta go

Sam: fuck u

Steve: love u 2

“Ok,” Bucky says, side-eying Steve’s obnoxious grin. “Let’s do this.”

“That was fast.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Really?” Steve tries to look disapproving but it totally fails and Buck leans back in his chair stretching nonchalantly. His hip bones are visible in the space beneath his shirt hem and distraction becomes a priority as Steve’s cheeks start to burn. 

He hops to his feet and scrolls to the top of the list. “Anna Ballinger.”

Buck nods. Head in the game. “Sweetheart. Telekinesis. Organized.”

“Banking?”

“Mm, maybe, but she doesn’t do well with assholes.”

“How organized? Administrative assistant?”

“If the boss doesn’t suck.”

“Nah, he’s sweet too. Done. Next… Hank Gleason.”

“Oh, asshole. But smart. He might do ok with banking actually.”

“Perfect. Done. Really? This guy’s name is Carlile? Is he as big a douche as he sounds?” Bucky laughs, buttery warm and Steve beams up at him, proud to have been the cause.

“Nah, he’s ok. Not super bright, but strong as hell.”

“Construction?”

“Yeah.” 

They get through fifteen names in a half hour and Bucky finishes scanning through the rest of the names while Steve starts calling potential bosses. They make good time, working efficiently with Steve pacing the floor and Buck curled on the desk, so fluid and natural in their process that Steve physically startles when Bucky exits the current screen and his own file pops up.

Grateful to have hung up with an employer moments before, Steve moves swiftly to his laptop, intent on snapping it closed, but Bucky catches his hand. “Wait.”

Bucky’s heart rate has shot up, Steve can hear it, or maybe it’s his own responding to cool silver fingers looped around his wrist, unrelenting as Buck reads.

Steve immediately digs in his pocket for his phone again, anything to distract him. He doesn’t pull away though, stays still and present as he checks his texts. Sam has responded ‘u wouldn’t know love if it bit u in the a$$’, and Pietro sent him a link about a few available tech jobs he’s found. 

‘Tx’ Steve replies to Pietro, then glancing over Bucky’s profile, adds, ‘We don’t have any extra laptops around do we?’

“You read this?” Buck interrupts his texting.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s your life Buck. You can tell me what you want me to know.”

Bucky shifts his thumb to rest over Steve’s pulsepoint and they both look down at the point of connection in silence. 

“Thank you.”

“Nah, man,” Steve manages. “Thank you. You’ve been a huge help today.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I…” Too much.

Buck lets go of his wrist and grins, a lovely lie. Steve’s relieved heart breaks in two. Confusing. 

“So now what?”

“Now,” Steve answers, putting some solid distance between the two of them. “We finish making these calls, and then we see what Barbara’s got next.”

“We, huh?” 

“You don’t want to?”

“I’d love to. You trust me?”

That’s the last reaction he’d been expecting, but he’s got the answer. “Yeah, Buck,” he says, still startled by how blue Bucky’s eyes are after years of the absence of color. “Of course I do.”

Pleased, Bucky mutters, “You’re an idiot.” 

“True. Now shut up and let me finish this.” 

Two minutes later he’s listening to Barbara hollering at him from the phone he’s holding at arm’s length. “What do you mean you found them all jobs?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, BG. Buck’s super helpful.”

She’s good, barely even sounds accusatory as she says, “Yeah? Is that why Pietro wants to give him our extra laptop?” 

“Um…” He doesn’t think he’s in trouble, but her tone is loaded with something and she counters smoothly.

“Should I hire him?” 

“Yes. Yes yes yes. Definitely. Yes.”

“So that’s a yes?” she teases and he huffs. “Put me on speaker.”

“Barbara -”

“Now Steve.”

“I...ugh. You’re on.”

“James Barnes?” Her voice is immediately softer, warmer and Steve sighs audibly with gratitude.

Bucky’s head snaps up, gauging Steve’s expression as he answers. “Yes ma’am.”

“I’m Barbara Gordon.”

“The commissioner’s daughter.”

“You’ve done your research.”

“Not much to do in a prison but read, ma’am. 

“Good. Then you know the Oracle.”

“Who doesn’t?” He’s trying to play it cool but the hint of awe in Buck’s voice at the mention of it makes Steve stand a little straighter.

“And you know that I run it.”

“I do now.”

“And that our boy Rogers is one of our best contributors.”

“I’ve been reading his stuff for years without even knowing it. Captain America?”

Barbara’s laugh translates beautifully across the protected line. “Our golden boy.”

“He’s not that golden,” Buck grins. 

“No,” she replies, more soberly. “No, he’s not. But one of the best men I’ve known, brokenness and all.”

“You know I’m still here, right?” Steve grunts, clinging desperately to sarcasm.

“Shut up, Rogers. Barnes, you wanna come work for me?”

“I...I’m not -”

In the quiet of consideration Steve can hear Jamie murmuring gently, trying to convince Marshmallow to climb into something, Steve’s guessing Bucky’s sweatshirt. 

Fidgeting with a hangnail Bucky murmurs, “You’re really ok with this?”

“More than. So much. Times a million.” Steve hopes it’s enough.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he murmurs with a wry smile, then more loudly, “I’d be honored, ma’am.”

“No more ma’am. It’s Barbara. Come in with Rogers on Monday and we’ll get you squared away.”

“O...k?”

“And excellent work today, kid.”

“I didn’t -” 

“You used your gifts to help people. That’s what that was, Barnes. Accept it. Own it. It just became your job. Steve, on point as always, and don't scare my new guy off, I have big plans for him.”

“Who says he’s yours?”

He can tell by her tone that she's smiling. “See you soon boys.” 

\--

It’s so early Steve’s voice turns to gravel in his throat as he answers the phone. “Sam. The fuck do you want?”

“Sorry man, I hate to do this to you, but one of our Mutts needs a hand moving into her new place, and we were totally gonna help, me ‘n’ Pete -”

“He hates when you call him that.”

“But then I looked up the address and it’s way closer to your place than mine, and we’re supposed to get there at seven, that’s a.m. can you believe it, and you’ve got your beefy boyfriend living with you, and I just thought that maybe, if you were like, a really good friend you might consider -”

“I will do literally anything to get you to stop talking.”

“Great! Thank you!”

“Stop yelling and forward me the address.”

The coordinates arrive in his inbox with a ding as Steve scrubs at his eyes and checks the time. Five seventeen a.m. Christ. He untangles from the sheets and heads into the kitchen to start the coffee.

Bucky is curled up on the couch, six feet of scruff and sinew somehow still managing to look small against the cushions. The very beginnings of daylight are frosting the room and Steve watches far too fondly as the light sweeps Bucky’s face, gentle and sweet, and tries not to be jealous. He only feels a little bad for waking Buck up, and not bad at all for smoothing a hand over fabric draped metal, too affectionately, but hey, no one’s watching. Steve observes the hazy transition into consciousness and then Bucky jerks hard, startled. 

“Hey, shit, you’re ok, I’m sorry.”

“Stevie?”

“Yeah Buck. I’m sorry I woke ya…”

Confusion reads clear as Bucky glances around the room, then back to Steve’s face. Agonizingly slowly he relaxes, tension leaving his muscles and then his expression. “Hey. Sorry. What’s...what’s up?”

Steve wants to cry at that lost reaction, and it’s not the unforgiving hour. Buck hadn’t known where he was, and Steve can’t protect him, not now, now before -

“Stevie?”

“Zoe Slater needs help moving in this morning. I said we’d go.” He stifles a yawn against his shoulder, hoping Bucky recognizes the name.

“Wh-when? And where?”

“Seven. Few blocks away.”

“What time is it now?”

“Like… five thirty.”

“Plenty of time,” Buck mumbles, eyes half closed, and yanks Steve down onto the couch with his metal arm abruptly enough that Steve loses his balance and topples down. Bucky draws him in, burying his nose between Steve’s shoulder blades. “‘Nother hour,” he slurs. “Just an hour. Stay.”

Steve pulls the metal arm tighter across his chest. “Yeah. Yeah ok.”

When they wake again to Steve’s alarm they’re both so groggy neither thinks to comment on the sleeping arrangements, shuffling into the kitchen for coffee when there’s a knock on the door. It’s Ollie, her long silvery hair braided and twisted up on her head. She looks suspiciously pleased with herself as she greets them.

“Hey, Ol. What’s up?”

“We can take Jamie if you want. You can pick her up after.”

“After?” he murmurs.

“Whatever it is you’re doing at seven.”

He squints at her. “How...Did you hear through the -”

“Ollie!” Jamie calls. “Hi!”

“How would you like to help Artie and I at the store?”

Bucky leans in, breath warm against Steve’s ear, “How did she know…” he whispers and Steve manages to turn his shiver into a shrug. 

“She just knows shit, man. Her and Artie.”

As Jamie pulls on her shoes Ollie says, “How’re you enjoying your new home, James?”

He’s taken aback by the question. “It’s...great. Thank you. Steve helped me get a job yesterday, so hopefully I’ll be able to afford a place of my own soon. Be out of his hair.” He grins amiably at Steve, who struggles to wrestle unadulterated pain from his expression.

“Oh.” Of course. Buck would want his own place. The Rogers apartment is cramped, full of small, noisy, easy-to-trip-over beings and one too-big-for-his-own-good Mutt. “Right.” Is he smiling? He hopes that’s what’s happening. 

“Riiiight,” Ollie drawls, glancing between the two of them. “Well. Have fun this morning, boys. Ready Ms. Jamie?”

“Readier than them,” she says, taking Ollie’s hand with one of her small ones and waving the other over her shoulder at Steve and Buck.

“Hey!” Steve protests, but she and Ol are already in the hall, giggling and ignoring him. “Rude.”

Buck is lacing his boots, hunching in a way that presses his thin shirt tight against his back, outlining muscle and bone and Steve has to suppress a groan. Christ, he thinks. Get a grip.

Marie out in the hall fetching her paper, and when Buck emerges behind Steve she gasps. Steve’s surprised too, as he glances down to where Bucky has locked their elbows together possessively, then up to watch his friend bare his teeth at her, growling, “Can I help you?”

Steve tightens his hold, suppressing laughter until Marie disappears back into her apartment. “Jesus,” Bucky gripes. “What’s her problem?” He drops their arms and Steve’s surprised at how cold the air is in the hallway.

“Eh. Bigot. She’s always giving me and Jamie the stink eye.”

“How could anyone not like Jamie?” Bucky protests.

Warmth floods Steve's chest, rich and absolute, too real to do anything about it, and shake his head, shrugging. 

Buck eyes him suspiciously. “What.”

“Glad you guys…get along.” They trot down the stairs. “I know James can be a handful.” 

“Nah. She's great. Smart as hell and quite the shit talker. Like another Rogers I know.” 

Steve grins. “Hey, don't talk about my mother like that.” 

“Shut up, asshole,” Buck chuckles, socking him soundly in the shoulder. “Your mama’s a saint. You on the other hand…”

“Hey, I'm a fuckin’ angel.”

“Bein’ pretty don't make you an angel.” The morning is soft and damp as they take off down the sidewalk towards Zoe’s in the gradually awakening city 

“You think I'm pretty?” 

“Always have,” Buck replies cheerily, hands in pockets, taking the lead by a few paces and Steve’s about to ask, wants to so badly when Bucky continues. “I’m kinda glad Sam pussied out, honestly. I’m excited for you to meet Zoe. She’s cool. Sassy as fuck, and really remarkable.”

Disappointment washes away the hopeful nerves, surprisingly bitter, but it only takes Steve a moment to shake out of it. He’s excited to meet Zoe, too. 

Gotta work on reigning in that optimism though.

“Yeah. What’s her gift?”

“Oh man, I couldn’t even begin to explain. It’ll be...you’ll see.”

Steve’s too tired to worry about it. They shuffle the rest of the way in silence, yawning into the dawn and for all the turbulence in Steve’s chest he finds his mind settled in a way he hasn’t felt in years. 

They trudge up the driveway just as a small moving truck screeches to a halt, and a girl hops out, waving. “James! Sam texted me there was change in plans and I’m so fucking happy it’s you!” She bounds over, throwing her arms around him and Steve smacks his lips at the sudden and inexplicable taste of butterscotch on his tongue, frowning at the strangeness of it. “And who is this beautiful bro?” 

Steve stares. There’s a haze hovering around her, transparent but obvious, like warmth waving up from superheated pavement.

“Zoe, this is my best friend, Steve.”

The “best friend” wiggles it’s way into Steve’s bloodstream, sweeping him with joy, but he’s immediately distracted because when Buck speaks, a lovely milky smoke swirls into the haze near Zoe’s throat.

“What the fuck?” he says, and a bluish mist rolls out on her shoulder close to where he’s standing. She laughs. 

“Yeah...it’s kind of an inconvenient power, I’ll be honest.” Butterscotch again. What is happening?

“What...is it?”

“Ever heard of synesthesia?” she calls over her shoulder, heading back to the truck. 

“Uh...no?”

“James, please explain. Your boy is distractingly delicious and I need to focus.”

Bucky’s clenching his jaw, but relaxes when Steve glances over expectantly. “When you smell something, see something, taste, feel...the information gets delivered to receptors in your brain like a lock and key. The smell lock to the smell key. Taste to taste. With synesthesia, the signals get crossed, so smells might feel like something. Sound might have color or texture, like the smokiness from our voices, or taste -”

“Like butterscotch,” Steve says softly. “When she speaks.”

Bucky nods. “She’s the physical embodiment of the condition.” 

“What the...that’s the fucking coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Thank you, pretty boy!” Zoe calls, balancing on the back bumper of truck. “Now come put those muscles to good use!” 

Heading towards her, Buck laughs strangely, “See? Told you. Pretty.”

Steve blushes and follows behind. It’s dumb. It’s a joke. He needs to stop taking everything Buck says so literally, no matter how badly he wants to believe it. 

Unloading the truck helps to distract him as he stacks things as high as he can fit through the door frame and carries them up to the second floor. Each time he comes out there are more boxes, or furniture set out on the curb, and the Zoe and Buck are still jabbering on about people and places Steve’s never heard of, speaking amiably about life in what was essentially a prison as if had been some sort of summer camp. Bucky’s voice swirls around fondly in her hazy aura and Steve tries desperately to dismiss the jealousy eating at his organs. 

There’s shame there too, that Bucky made friends on the inside, made a life for himself even in that restrictive environment, and Steve’s been drowning for half a decade, trying desperately to keep his head above water and mostly failing. Jamie’s the best thing he’s ever been responsible for and he’s pretty sure he’s been fucking even that up on the regular. 

When the truck is empty they drag the boxes into the appropriate room and begin unpacking the kitchen first, shelving food and dishes. Apparently the company responsible for Buck and Zoe’s imprisonment offered each Mutt a sort of sick severance package, money and resources in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement and waving the right to sue. 

Little crackles of light scatter across Zoe’s body at the sound of Buck cracking his knuckles. “You didn’t take the money?” she asks.

Buck shakes his head.

Steve frowns. “Why?”

“I dunno.” Bucky shuffles around in a box of cutlery. “I wanted to be able to talk about it. Sue if the opportunity came up. It was a gated community, not prison, but we still weren’t free to leave, forced to do things against our will...that’s not what this country is about. If I can use my voice to make things better…”

“The new job’ll be perfect for you,” Steve chokes and Bucky’s head snaps up, surprised, perhaps, at his tone. Steve sure is. The blue fog of his voice in Zoe’s aura is tinted with black and silver granules, and they all stare at it until Zoe waves her hand, dispersing the vapor. “Sorry,” he adds, though he’s not entirely sure why. 

“No apologies, Rogers,” she murmurs. “Thank you for your help, by the way.”

“Of course.” 

“I’m glad to finally meet you. James always spoke...fondly of your friendship.”

“Yeah?” This time the fog is closer to azure, light and silky and he smiles at it. 

“Wouldn’t shut up about you, honestly. He wasn’t kidding when he said you were -”

“Ok, th-that’s enough of that,” Buck interrupts and Zoe chuckles, butterscotch into honey. “There are plenty of things about that place we’ll never mention again. Let’s go ahead and make that one of them.”

“Uh, like that fucking alarm? Awful way to wake up.”

“And if I never feel like I’m hallucinating my own life again, I will be more than happy.”

“I hear that,” Steve sighs.

“What’d you mean?” 

He shrugs. “When I first moved out here… I spend a lot of time...fucked up. It was my fault. Dumb. I don’t remember a lot of it, weird flashes of shit, or nightmares that feel like memories...I don’t know.”

Buck pales, opens his mouth to speak, but Zoe cuts him off, interested. “When did you move out here?”

“Ah. Um. Seven years ago. Ish.”

“How come?”

“I...lost someone. We were gonna move to the city after high school. He couldn’t make it, so I went alone.” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t want to see what the mist looks like now, keeps his eyes on the cans of soup and veggies he’s stacking in the pantry. 

“Good for you,” she says, climbing onto the counter to reach the top shelf. For a moment Steve can’t breath for grief but there’s a shift in air behind him and then Buck’s hand, cool and strong, is squeezing the back of his neck. He makes an embarrassing noise at the feeling and the sound shows up on Zoe’s haze as a tiny explosion, red and gold, but he thinks he might be the only one who notices because Bucky’s watching him carefully and Zoe has her back turned. Steve manages a smile, pacifying enough that Buck loosens his grip, allowing Steve to step away, away from the wanting, from the need that’s becoming so familiar to his body that he barely notices it anymore. 

Buck frowns, but Zoe asks about some friend they had on the inside and he’s effectively distracted.

The conversation picks up again, and Steve’s proud of himself for keeping his vapor navy and calm for the rest of the visit.

\--

“Wake up, Buck.” 

“No.”

“Wake up, Name Man!” Jamie takes off at a dead run across the living room. “It’s time for work!” 

“Jamie!” Steve shouts but she’s already flying through the air, limbs splayed, and lands with a flump on Bucky’s back. He coughs low in his chest, wind knocked from his lungs. “You’re quite the alarm clock.”

“You have to go to work with us!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters grumpily, but Steve can see the smile creep across his mouth where it’s pressed against the fabric of the couch. 

“Come on baby,” he says, helping Jamie down and his fingers brush Buck’s neck, to which Bucky twitches to stare at him weirdly. “Go get your stuff ready. And brush your teeth!” he adds as she bounces away. “What?” 

Buck shakes his head, blushing. “N-nothing. I-is the coffee on?”

“Nah, I’ll get on it. You sure you’re ok?”

Tugging the blanket tight around his waist, he nods only once, adamantly. “Yep.”

Confused and too tired to deal with it, Steve goes to make coffee. Listening to Bucky and Zoe yesterday made the separation between their lives painfully obvious. Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it sure as shit does change things. They're not as close as they used to be, no matter how he tries to frame it. 

Steve’s not sure how to mourn that loss, and feels like an ungrateful shit for it thinking it at all. Bucky's alive. That should be enough. 

He hears the shower turn on, water slopping through the piping and spitting onto the tile, and tries not to imagine what Buck must look like in there, tan and firm. And wet. 

“Daddy?” 

He distracts himself with scalding coffee. “Sweet Pea?”

“You should tell him you love him.”

Steve chokes and accidently spits coffee everywhere. Wiping droplets of coffee from the tile backsplash he murmurs, “What did you say?” 

She's looking small and mischievous in her yellow dress and purple sneakers. “You have super hearing, Daddy. You know what I said. Why don't you tell him?”

He leans on the counter, exhaling through pursed lips and tries to think of a kid-appropriate answer. He doesn't want to scare Buck off. Besides, the guy’s been out for mere days. It wouldn't be fair to spring this on him before he's even had the opportunity to get to know anyone else. And if it's not mutual… Fuck. It doesn't bear thinking about. Better to leave it alone. He opens his mouth, ready to try and explain when he notices Jamie's staring at him with a sad smile. 

“Oh,” she says.

“Oh what?”

“You're a dumbass, Daddy.”

“Hey! That's -”

“So’s Bucky. You're perfect for each other.”

“Jamie…” he warns but she shrugs her tiny shoulders. 

“Ok, ok, jeez.”

They end up grinning at each other and he sweeps her up in his arms, smacking a kiss on her cheek.”

“Da-ad…”

“Hey. You just called me a dumbass. I'm taking revenge.”

“Well you are. Bucky loves you too.”

A wave of adrenaline sweeps him and he shivers. “Maybe. But it'd still be taking advantage if I said anything.”

“Why?” 

“Grown up reasons, baby girl.”

She pats his face gently and shakes her head. He can tell she’s calling him a dumbass again, just silently this time. 

They make it out the door within the hour, and Buck stops abruptly as the three of them stumble into the garage. “No way. Is that your fucking car. Sorry Jamie.”

She shrugs and answers for him. “Yes way.”

“Is that a fucking Boss 302? Are you insane? Are you trying to paint a giant fucking target on your back? Can I drive?”

“Tomorrow,” Steve laughs. “When we’re not running late.”

“Because some cute guy took forever in the shower,” Jamie mutters, brushing toys out of her car seat.

Buck pokes her in the tummy. “You think I’m cute?”

 

She glares at him as if it’s obvious. “It’s a Rogers thing, I guess.”

Maybe the dark of the garage will hide how badly Steve’s blushing. Doubtful though, because Bucky is flashing that shit-eating grin he reserved for girls back when they were in high school, the wise-ass motherfucker.

“Get in the damn car,” he grunts to both of them, and waits only long enough to fasten Jamie into her car seat before peeling out. They drive from one underground lot to another, and Steve catches the side eye Buck flashes as they wind around the back of the “office” and through a huge bay door of what used to be one of the manufacturing floors.

“Old factory. It’s better if we don’t have an official location.”

“Safer.”

“Yeah.”

“People come after you?”

“They don’t know who we are. I’m not actually a hundred percent sure Nat or the Maximoffs are even citizens here under their given names. And Sam and I technically work at a VA office near his apartment where he volunteers sometimes. Our mail gets sent there. I should probably email Dana and have her set up a profile for you too.”

“This is the real deal.” There’s a tension, a quaver in his voice that Steve recognizes from all those years ago. 

“Buck. You’ll be spectacular.”

He shrugs and presses his forehead to the window, watching the shadowy innards of the factory roll past the glass. 

Barbara is waiting for them in the office. 

“Morning, fuckers,” she greets with a grin. 

“Pietro!” Jamie hollers, and gallops down the length of the room to where he’s pouring coffee for himself and Wanda.

Steve hears a fond, “ _Solnyshko_ ,“ from Pietro, and then Barbara says, “I’m glad you made it, Barnes.”

He bobs his head shyly. “Thank you for the opportunity.”

She waves a hand dismissively. “Let me introduce you to the team.”

Sam and Nat are hanging by their knees from a rafter and before calling them down Barbara says, “Cute fucker with the wings is Sam Wilson, PR and research. Natasha Romanoff does a number of things for us, not the least of which is undercover work. She’s indispensable.”

“Aw!” Natasha says, flipping backward gracefully off the rafter and landing on a knee. She offers Buck a sweet smile along with a hand. “Wow. Quite the looker aren’t you?” At Steve’s warning glare she adds, “Nice to meet you. I’m Nat.”

“Bucky,” he responds, eyes widening as Sam flutters down and lands behind her. “Holy shit.”

Sam folds his wings tightly into his bag and beams. “Good to meet you man.”

“You have …”

“Wings. Yeah.”

“That’s -”

“Weird? Inconvenient?”

“Fucking badass.”

He chuckles and Steve can tell he’s genuinely flattered. “Thanks, Barnes.”

Pietro introduces himself with Jamie wrapped around one of his legs, and then Wanda, quiet and calm. “Wanda is a jack of all trades and Pietro our tech guy. Need equipment? Pietro’s your man,” Barbara adds. 

Head tucked down a bit, Buck watches Barbara gesture around. “My office. Maximoff’s cubicle. You’ll be over there with the terrible trio... I have a feeling I’ll have to come up with a new name for you guys…What?” She’s squinting at Bucky’s face. 

“Everyone’s so...you guys are incredible. I’ve read the pieces, I’m pretty sure I know who’s who...You guys are like superheroes and I...I’m - ”

Barbara interrupts. “Let me level with you, Barnes. You are not the most fucked up person on staff.”

“I didn’t… I’m not -”

Gesturing to Natasha, Barbara murmurs, “She used to work for the KGB.”

“What?” Buck coughs.

Nat grins. “This job has better benefits.”

“Pietro and Wanda? They were kidnapped as kids, held for years. You guys should talk. Sam? Ex soldier. PTSD out the ass. I can’t fucking walk, which would be fine, except for I have dreams about murdering the piece if shit that put me in this chair and they’re some of my favorite parts of my week.”

“Oh,” Bucky whispers.

“And your boy Rogers? Whew. Don’t even get me started.”

“Great,” Steve interrupts. “Then don’t. Start.”

“PTSD, depression, either dissociative fugue or some drug problem -”

“Not in years!”

“Not to mention -”

“Ok, that’s so enough.”

“You’re no fun,” Nat pouts.

“Staff meeting,” Barbara counters gleefully, reeling them all right back in again and Steve sighs. 

“You are a maddening woman.”

“I am many things, Rogers, not the least of which is maddening.”

Bucky quirks a brow. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Her answering laugh is glorious.

They pile into the conference room, chairs abandoned for sprawling in various places on the table and carpet as Barbara loads her wall of computers. “Alright. We’ve got some shit on our plates.”

She rolls back a bit so they can view the screens more fully. Bucky stretches from his place on the carpet then tugs his shirt back down from where it’s ridden up over his hip. Steve swallows hard.

“First up, the referendum.” Buck looks a little confused and a lot embarrassed but Barbara doesn’t even pause for a breath before continuing, and Steve’s sure he’s the only one that clocked her gaze towards the blue eyed man on the floor. “We’ve got three weeks to get our initiative on the ballot. Equal protections under law. It’s not federal, but if we can set a precedent...well, people pay attention to New York City.”

“What do we need?” Wanda asks.

“Public opinion,” Barbara shrugs. “People need to know that Mutts are no threat. Senator Pierce has been trying to sell the idea that Mutts are evil for years. We need to make sure no one with a shred of sense believes him.”

“How though?” Sam sounds frustrated and Steve knows this is hard for him. Mutts who are also veterans have a particularly rough time of it. The US Armed Forces wants all the help they can get, but they’re not so quick to take care of their ‘special forces’ once the soldiers are back home. Which probably makes it doubly painful when Barbara admits with a sigh, “I don’t know.”

Nat uncurls, shocked. “What?” 

“I don’t know! I don’t know how to change that. We write articles, and the people who already support us read them. We do good work in the community, and making sure Mutts are visible and integrated into society at large is necessary and important but...I’ll be honest with you. The numbers aren’t looking great. We need something big. Probably more than one something. Something that will shift perception for the bigots -ah, excuse me- voters who don’t already support our cause.”’

The silence hangs heavy as Buck shifts to rest his head on Steve’s shoe, tucking a hand back around his calf for support. He’s warm, even through denim and leather. 

“We don’t have to have answers right now. But we need them soon. Keep your eyes open.”

“Done. Of course. What’s next?” Steve prompts. She’s right. They have too much on their plates right now to lose momentum. 

“We’ve found placements for all our recently released friend thanks to Rogers and Barnes here.”

Steve reaches out and he and Buck high five, sending a satisfying crack through the room without even looking. 

“Yeah, yeah, good job boys. But we know there are more.”

“More?” Buck asks. 

“Missing. Mutts.”

“You think there’s another facility.” It’s not a question but Barbara nods anyway. 

“Yeah.”

Buck sits up. “Let me help.”

She turns towards Bucky. For a moment, there’s no one in the room but the two of them and Steve’s not even jealous. 

“I’m not asking that of you, James.”

“I know.”

“We’ll need information. You’ll have to relive things you might rather not.”

“I know.”

“We aren’t just brains here. We go out into the field. If I send you on a mission, can you keep your head clear?”

“I…” He twists his fingers so roughly Steve hears the joints pop. “I don’t know right now. The circumstances...it depends. But I swear to you, I’ll tell you the truth. At every point. What I know, where I’m at… You told me out there, earlier, that I wasn’t the most fucked up. Which is true, technically. But I am. Fucked up. Equally maybe. Which means I belong here. And I’ll sure as hell work like I do.”

Steve’s so proud a weird strangled noise escapes him and Barbara’s beaming. “Rogers said you were remarkable.”

“I may have exaggerated,” Steve grunts roughly, but Barbara just winks at him, allowing everyone back into the conversation. 

“So what’s the plan?” Pietro asks, bouncing Jamie on his knee absently. She’s flapping her arms like a bird, but quietly. She’s a good girl. Knows something important is happening. 

“Pietro. We’re going to need mics, cameras -”

“Weapons,” he completes. “You’re preparing for war.”

“Not if we don’t have to.” 

He stands, allowing Jamie to scramble onto the table and then his back. “I’ll be ready.”

“You always are. Sam, Nat, Wanda, I need you to follow resources. Anything, anyone that went into or out of that facility Buck was held at, I need to know every detail. Who. Where. When. How much. Got it?”

They nod grimly, and head out. 

“I’m gonna keep you two,” She says to Steve and Buck. “See if we can expand the picture we’ve got on the people who are fucking us over.” 

Buck rolls to his feet gracefully, perching on the edge of the table next to where Steve’s leaning, close enough that their elbows brush when he gestures. “This place is amazing by the way. The whole thing, but your setup is...it’s...so fuckin’ cool.” His overly enthusiasm is adorable, and Steve smiles fondly at him, but Barbara offers a genuine thank you. 

“I appreciate it. It took some doing, but it’s the best there is.”

“You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” Buck observes. 

“Nah. I like quality.”

“Then what’re you doin’ with our boy here?” he teases, digging an elbow into Steve’s ribs. 

“Oh come on, Barnes. You know there’s no one better. Known for a while now, haven't you?”

Bucky shifts restlessly, but not like he’s trying to escape. More like he’s getting comfortable. “I plead the fifth.” It’s a joke. Steve’s not sure what to do with it. 

“Alright, alright. Here we go. I’m gonna talk you through what we know, and you’re going to interrupt me if you have anything to add.”

“Hey, how come he gets to interrupt and I get death threats?”

Over her shoulder as she loads the last file Barbara fires, “Buck’s prettier.”

Bucky crows triumphantly and Steve leaves it alone. He agrees. 

“Alright, Pretty Boy, let’s see how you catch up.” 

She fills him in on the government agency intended to help Mutts, the way it spun into a tracking program, Zola, the whole nine, and by the time she’s done Steve is doing restless push ups at the back of the room and Buck buries his face in his hands for a moment before breathing deep. “Ok. My turn.”

Steve doesn’t have super speed like Pietro, but less than a heartbeat passes in the time it takes him to get to Buck’s side. 

“They found me after the fall. Not sure how. Arm had to be amputated within the first week, but they gave me the prosthetic right away. We were in a...compound? Maybe? A gated community. We had apartments, small, like a studio, and there was a gym, a library, we ate well. It was a pacifying technique, obviously, but it worked, probably better than I’d like to admit. There was a...garden, like a college quad, and a ceiling, glass, incredibly tough. There was no way to escape, up, down or sideways. Believe me. We tried. All of us, at some point. And then eventually. All of us just...stopped. Trying.”

“Why?” Steve’s relieved BG asked. He doesn’t trust his voice at this point. 

Buck shrugs, suddenly sagging like someone’s cut his muscles away. “We came in innocent. No one stayed that way for long. Who’d have taken us if we left?”

“I would!” Steve says loudly, then softer, correcting. “We would.”

The forlorn smile Bucky gives rips into him. “I know, Stevie. But we...it took us awhile.”

Barbara’s watching them carefully. “What do you mean no one stayed innocent?”

“They weren’t just studying us. Our gifts were theirs to use.”

“How?”

Buck shrugs. “I was asked to heal a number of high profile patients. Empaths made to gather state secrets...what?”

Barbara’s shaking her head. “This is bad. Pierce is gonna have a field day with this referendum if it gets out you guys were working for them -”

“We didn’t have a choice!” Buck spits, knuckles whitening around the edge of the table

“Of course not James. Your lives were at risk.”

“No! I mean yeah, they were but...they have this...d-drug...Inhibitions are gone. You’re a blank slate, longing to be filled, and they - fuck. They filled us.”

“What happened?” Steve whispers.

“I don’t - I don’t know a lot of it. The drug has side effects, especially if they use a higher dose for big guys or extreme metabolisms...makes you groggy, like really strong pot maybe. I’d lose time...days at a time...You get the memories back eventually, if you fight for them, but sometimes it’s -” He chokes. “Sometimes it’s best to leave it alone.”

Steve’s thinking of his first years in New York, of hazy memories and nightmares that are just a little too vivid.

“I know, hon,” Barbara says softly, so sweet and aching Steve feels suddenly brittle and raw. “What else can you tell us?”

“They kept files on all of us, paper and computerized. They had a bunch of employees at the facility, medical techs, guards, handlers, doctors, even a fucked up counseling service. They knew a lot. But not everything.”

“Escape plans?”

Buck shirks the question and gives a better one. “What else were we supposed to do?”

“Exactly what you did. You survived.” 

He freezes, scanning the blueprint pulled up on one of the monitors. “There was a basement. At the compound. Why isn’t it on the plans?”

Surprise followed by a manic grin dances across Barbara’s lovely face. “Because it wasn’t drawn in. Because I didn’t know it existed. I read the recon reports. They raided the rooms, the library, the gym, the bathrooms, the labs...there was no mention of extra storage.”

“Maybe it’s in older reports,” Buck suggests, but Steve scoffs. “What?”

“If they’d written it, BG would’ve found it.”

“Everything leaves a trail,” she adds. 

“So now what do we do?”

“We figure out what’s in that bunker. And how to get in.”

\--

“Whatcha doin’?”

It’s spoken softly but Steve startles so hard he spills some beer on the fire escape.

“Sorry,” Buck adds ruefully. “I can -”

“No! Stay.”

The city is alive around them but it’s safe out here. Separate.

“Look what I found.”

 

Steve groans at the photo album in Buck’s hand. “I mean, you’re welcome to it, at your own risk though…”

Buck snorts, cracking open the cover then says warmly, “Jamie,” and Steve leans in to see. 

“Yeah. Fresh out the oven, probably three weeks.”

“She’s cute.”

“She is.”

“Wow. Family photo?” It’s the market, two years ago, Jamie perched on a pile of watermelons while Steve stands guard and Artie and Ollie are giggling in the background. The sisters are blurry, a little distorted maybe from dust on the lense or an error in printing, but Jamie looks cute as a button and Steve looks...well, he’s not too proud to say he looks good too.

“You’ve lost weight since then,” Buck observes causally, but there’s a tension to his voice that Steve notices and avoids immediately..

“Work’s been crazy.”

“It’s always crazy.”

“I’m fine Buck.”

“Are you?”

He’s the hundredth person to ask in the past few days and Steve wants to scream but Jamie’s asleep, and besides Buck doesn’t deserve to get accosted for giving a fuck. 

“Yes. Jesus, Buck.

“But you’re not eating.”

“I eat plenty.”

“Or sleeping…”

“I am!”

“Since when?” Buck challenges.

“Since you came home, now fuck off!”

Bucky’s staring at him in the silence.

Steve doesn’t respond. 

Finally Buck shifts his weight and brushes casual fingers through the hair tumbling over Steve’s forehead. “It’s been seven years, man. What’s going on?”

Steve drains the beer, drops his head between his knees, and sighs. “I missed you so bad I couldn’t breathe. And then Jamie was born, and no one sleeps, ever, when you’ve got a kid.” Buck makes a hurt little noise, but Steve barrels on. “Lately...shit. I’ve always had a sixth sense about you, and that never changed. Couple months ago, I started dreaming about you. More and more, and everything felt like my fault. Like I didn’t get you in time, didn’t present in time, I just - fuck.”

His eyes sting but the air is cool on his skin and he tries to breathe through the pain. Bucky’s voice catches him off guard. “Dreamed about you, too Stevie.”

Jerking upright Steve stares at him. God, those eyes. Ice blue, searing, and this time it’s Bucky’s turn for a break, too much at stake in that gaze and he shifts to watch the traffic weave absently below them. “I didn’t move for a year. I was so fuckin’ angry, at everyone. I didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. Just waited.”

“For what.”

He shrugs. “To die? I dunno.” 

A sob dances at the base of Steve’s throat and he can’t help it, he throws a forearm across Buck’s knee, just to touch him. “What happened?”

“I dreamed about you, skinny and shit-talking, and you yelled at me,” Buck chuckles dryly, and he settles his hand over Steve’s wrist. “For being a coward. Told me to get out of bed and make something of myself. So I did.”

“And here I was on the outside, being a lazy piece of shit.” 

Buck wrenches around and punches him in the shoulder so hard the muscle spasms. “OW! Fuck! What was that for?”

“You-” Bucky’s seething, breathing heavy through his nose. “You raised a brilliant girl on your own. You became part of a community. You do incredible things with your job. You help people, Stevie. Like you’ve always done. You save ‘em. Saved me,” he adds with a nod and Steve’s works his jaw but nothing comes out and Bucky turns his attention back to the photo album. “Idiot.”

He points to the next picture. “When was this?” It’s Steve and Nat and Sam, drunk and laughing hysterically. Not attractive, but genuine. 

“Thanksgiving. Last year.”

“Oh, wow,” Buck says softly at the next one. “Look at us.” It’s the barbecue, them and their dads and Steve nods, watching the man and not the photo, the way the moonlight traces his cheekbones, his jaw. 

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Good memories.”

“The best,” Bucky nods, looking up and Steve finds himself leaning in, wanting so badly to taste that moonlight on his friend’s skin, but then something catches Buck’s eyes. Venomously, he rips the photo from the page. 

“Who the fuck is this?”

Steve frowns down at the picture and chews his lip, bidding farewell to fond reminiscing. “Uh, Jamie’s mom. Sharon.”

Bucky looks so murderous Steve’s legitimately a little frightened of him as his fingers crumple the photo into nothing. 

“She worked at the facility.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS!!
> 
> Am i the worst? Yes. Will post the last chapter more quickly? Also yes. 
> 
> I love you guys so much for sticking around. I apologize on behalf of a crazy work schedule combined with manic depression. real inconvenient, ya know? 
> 
> <3

“She what?”

Steve was expecting yelling, perhaps even throwing things, but Barbara’s barely there voice is a thousand times more terrifying, and he feels the compulsion to apologize. 

“I’m sorry, B, I should’ve known…”

“Oh no you don’t.” She’s still whispering, and now pointing a finger into his personal space.

“Don’t...what?”

“This. Is. Not. Your. Fault.”

“I didn’t say -”

“You were thinking it.”

He grinds his teeth. “Was not.”

“You think everything’s your fault.”

From behind them, a delicately accented voice murmurs, “You suspected something.”

Steve shifts in his chair to look at Wanda leaning in the doorway of Barbara’s office. He slumps. Nods. Admits, “It wasn’t a seamless fit. It should’ve been perfect - we were into a lot of the same stuff, she was...god...gorgeous, but…”

“But?”

He shakes his head. “Felt like an act.” No one says the obvious but Barbara sighs so hard her butt slides forward in her chair. “What?”

“So she just showed up in your life and then what?” 

“Lied,” Buck says coolly, gently hip-checking Wanda from the doorway to hand out the coffees he’s carrying, stacked two deep. 

“Did she dig into your past?” Barbara asks. “Anything weird like trying to take tissue samples, or get at your family?”

“No, nothing like that. We barely dated, just laughed and fucked and then she had Jamie. And left.”

Bucky scowls. “How could anyone leave either of you?”

Steve shrugs. He doesn’t miss Sharon. 

Wanda sighs a curse in Russian and leaves. The other three drink their coffee in silence. 

Thoughtfully, Steve holds out an absent hand requesting control of the monitors for a moment, and Barbara grants it, watching as he flicks through files and logs and photos looking for something. Anything. 

“Buck,” he says quietly. “Can I pull up yours?”

“Yeah, man. Of course.”

Steve’s been avoiding the document. He doesn’t want to think about Bucky as a prisoner, a number, victim, a test subject. Maybe he should though. Buck is acclimating fabulously, but he can’t possibly be as even keeled as he’s been acting. Or maybe it’s wishful thinking on Steve’s part, that he’s not the only one fucked in the head. 

The first several pages are vitals, notes from doctors and therapists, feedback about missions (a few of which make Buck hang his head and send Steve’s blood pressure through the roof) but he moves on in reverse chronological order. Back and back they go, until Steve notices something in the text.

_Inconsistent with progenitor - modulating all bio matter._

“Inconsistent with progenitor,” Steve whispers to himself. “Wait. Zola. He tracked Mutts.”

Barbara nods absently. “Wanted to observe their growth over their lifetime.”

“Not just their lifetime,” Steve says through teeth clenched in fury as the reality settles in, and Bucky’s right there over his shoulder breathing heavily as he realizes simultaneously.

“Over generations. My dad. Yours. And the next one, too… Sharon wasn’t there for you.”

Steve stumbles to his feet and sprints out of the room in search of Jamie. She knows, of course, that something’s wrong. She’s heading toward him already and allows him to scoop her up, press his face into her hair and breathe her in, fruit and baby powder and child, _his_ child, the best thing he’s ever been a part of. She kisses him on the cheek.

“It’ll be ok, Dad.”

“You know what’s going on?”

“No. But...”

“But what?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not.”

“Why?” And why is he looking to her for comfort, like somehow she knows what to think, what to do? 

She just smiles. “You’ll take care of me.”

Bucky makes a pained noise from the wall where he’s leaning, watching, and he and Steve lock eyes over Jamie’s golden hair. 

“I gotta get into that bunker.”

Buck shakes his head. “We. We gotta get in.”

\--

Steve’s brain has been scrambling around his skull all day - distracted to the point of rudeness, and irritatingly jittery. Buck entertains Jamie through dinner, and Steve experiences distant gratitude filtered through guilt. He can’t be any kind of father right now. 

Sharon. He should’ve guessed that something wasn’t what it seemed. 

True, he’d been hazy when they’d met, weaving in and out of stupors and working mind-numbing jobs. Although he doesn’t remember actually doing very many drugs, he remembers being out of his mind for weeks at a time. He hadn’t been sober long enough to be discerning of anyone or anything. It’s a weird feeling to be grossed out at yourself. He’s not a fan. 

Jamie escapes to her room to play after the meal, and Steve clears the dishes with almost frantic efficiency. “Thanks for helping with her,” he mumbles. 

“My pleasure. You ok?”

Steve drops the plates in the sink unceremoniously before turning to slouch against the counter. “I should have known."

“About…?”

“Sharon.”

Buck makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat as he puts the cheese back in the fridge and shoves the door closed. “There’s no fucking way you could have, man. She’s was … a fuckin’ piece of work.”

“You knew her. At the -”

“Yeah,” Buck mutters. “And?”

“What was she like?”

He shrugs. “Quiet. Honestly, I didn’t mind her until…” There’s a strange squeaking and it takes Steve a second to realize it’s Bucky’s prosthetic, clenching so hard the metal is creaking against itself. 

“Buck.” Steve steps forward and uncurls the hand, gently. “It’s ok.”

Bucky shakes his head wordlessly and steps around him to wash the dishes, jaw ticking. 

Steve’s not sure what to say, so he joins Bucky at the sink. An unspoken system falls into place, Buck soaping the flatware and Steve rinsing it off. They make quick work of it, but the whole time Steve’s focused on the press of Bucky’s elbow against his own, the smell of soap and linen and Bucky, smoothing out the rough edges of his mind. 

“I hate her,” Buck says out of nowhere almost an hour later. 

“I'm lost,” Steve says tiredly to the article in his lap. Bucky's lying on the floor with his socked feet propped up on the couch tapping at Steve’s thigh. 

“Sharon.”

“Oh. Yeah, I'd imagine I'd hate anyone who kept me in that place.”

“No. Yeah. I mean -” He pinches the bridge of his nose, hiding his face briefly, but then he sits up on his elbows to look Steve in the eye. “She had fucking everything,” and he leans on that word - everything - like it's being torn from his throat. “And she left. It's not fair.”

“No, of course not Buck. For her to be out in the world while you were in that place … Furthest thing in the world from fair.”

Buck studies his face for a moment, serious, apprehensive, and Steve's sure he's about to say something important but instead he flops back down to the carpet with a sigh. Steve feels like he fucked up, though he’s unsure how. Not that it stops him from trying to fix it. 

He drops a hand to rest on Bucky's crossed ankles. “I'm glad she left.”

Buck looks appalled. “Why?”

Steve shrugs. “Rather be alone than lied to. And besides.” He smiles down, almost flirtatious but around Bucky everything has a bit of a shit-giving edge. “She's not really my type.”

Buck takes the bait, grinning but hesitant in saying, “Oh yeah? What's your type then?”

Steve's skin is suddenly far too tight, but he won't lie, needs a truth that won't shred them up and hang them out to rot. Voice dripping with put-upon humor he says, “Well, male, for starters.” 

Buck snorts and lets his head drop, mussing his hair as he shakes it against the rug. He looks happier though, and that's enough. 

\--

“If this goes pear shaped -”

“I’m still not fucking leaving, Steve, and you should know that.”

“Quit bickering you two,” Barbara’s voice bites into their ears and Buck scoffs. 

“Ok, mom.”

“Get the fuck out,” Sam says as he brakes the car to a stop. “You know where you’re headed?” His wings are tight against his back. Tense. Steve points northeast through the woods. “Be careful.”

Buck gives a silly mock salute and Steve claps him on the shoulder. Without a word, they hop from the car and slide down the embankment leading from the road into the ditch.

It’s a solid five miles to the facility. Steve hadn’t wanted to risk any collateral damage and kept the drop point far away. They stride quickly through the thickening trees but his legs are itching to run.

He shifts his gait a bit and it’s enough of a signal for the guy who’s been in his head their whole lives. “Hell yeah,” Bucky agrees with a grin, and they take off. 

Steve’s always been an anomaly, first too sickly and thin, and then a Mutt, unparalleled in physical ability. He’s anticipating having to slow his pace for Bucky, but that worry turns out to be completely unfounded.

They’re charging into war, and Steve can’t stop smiling. 

The underbrush is thin here; many of the saplings that didn’t take firm root have fallen over in sharp angles blocking the path like broken limbs. Steve vaults over the first one with ease and looks back in time to see Buck jump, swing from a low hanging branch, and land a few feet ahead of him. 

“Show off,” he mutters and Bucky cackles quietly. 

“Then do better.”

It’s electrifying. Steve is surprised to find his heart racing, and then he glances up to the figure before him, dark hair and broad shoulders and sinew beneath kevlar and cotton and he gets it. Perhaps it should make him sad - one kind of companionship when he longs for another - but in the rush of endorphins, he feels grateful. Maybe this is enough.

In the distance, a fence looms. 

It’s chain link, which seems ridiculous, but when he yanks his fingers through the diamond pattern, the metal barely gives. Again, harder. Again, nothing. 

“Let me,” Buck whispers, shouldering his way into Steve’s space. Steve lets him, doesn’t move much, revels in the press of their bodies together as Bucky takes his magic hand and twists the links open easily. “Ta-da.” He smirks, but this time Steve can see the tightness near his eyes and notices the tension in his posture. 

“Buck.” While they’re here. While they’re hidden. “Are you sure about this?”

Emphatically, he nods, “Yes.”

“I can - “

“You will fucking not.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“You were gonna say you can go alone. And no. Never.”

“Boys,” Barbara’s voice says softly into the earpieces. “You gotta get a move on. The guards change in 3 minutes.”

Buck nods at him and Steve helps peel the fence open, easier now that the links are severed. There’s not a sound as they creep through the yard towards the bone and stone edifice, pale rock, smooth and towering. 

There’re only two guards at the entry, government employees assigned to make sure no one breaks in and steals shit they shouldn’t. There isn’t even time to feel sorry for them because the main gate opens and a heavily armored car pulls through. Two men jump down, and the previous shift of guards climbs in, exchanging pleasantries. With the switch is complete, the vehicle reverses out of the gate and the new team adjusts themselves evenly in front of the door. 

Steve eyeballs them. The taller one is further away, the one he intends on taking, no way in hell is he giving him to Buck, and he gestures as much as they edge along the wall, out of sight but not for long. Buck nods decisively and the set of his shoulders belies preparation for action. Steve readies himself as well, then counts them off on his fingers. 3 - 2 - 1 - 

Springing from around the corner is rudimentary but effective. The guards both startle, milliseconds of delay in reaching for their weapons, and it’s just enough time for Buck to strike the firearm from the hand of the closer guard while Steve knocks his guy out from the get go, then downs the other guard easily now that he’s unarmed. The radio on the guard’s belt crunches out some white noise and Buck gestures to it, murmuring, “We should take it. In case anyone tries to check in.”

“Good idea.” In the time it takes him to clip the little black device to his pocket, Bucky has wrenched the door open with his prosthetic, and they’re in. “That’s some impressive shit, Buck.”

Beneath escaped strands of dark hair, Bucky’s cheeks redden slightly. “Thanks.” 

They sprint through a labyrinth of corridors. Bucky never hesitates, gesturing directions before they get to the turns and Steve follows without question, listening as Barbara comments occasionally on their coordinates, mapping their path with the tiny GPS dots taped to the skin of both their right shoulders, but mostly, keeping an eye on Bucky.

It can’t be easy, being back in this place. Steve has enough of a sense of direction to know from the blueprints that they’re bypassing the living area where Bucky spent most of his confinement, but there’s a specific, antiseptic smell in the whole place, and dull, ugly lighting, creating an ambiance that Steve can only imagine is not one that Buck wants to revisit. 

They crash into a stairwell and take the stairs three, four, five at a time, down, down, until Buck finally screeches to a halt. The lights buzz gently behind the sound of their breathing, but other than that, it’s silent. “You good?” Steve asks quietly.

“Superb,” Buck bites out. “Magnificent. Stupendous.”

“Buck, you don’t have to -”

“I swear to god, Rogers,” he grits, yanking the hatch open. “If you try one single more time to give me an out I’m not speaking to you for a week. I’m here. Let’s finish it.” And then Bucky’s through the door. 

Musty and a little damp, the storage area sprawls out in a forest of filing cabinets. “Oh god,” Steve groans. “This is gonna take forever.”

Bucky shakes his head. “Shit’s alphabetized. Their administrative assistant was the definition of anal.”

The walkie on Steve’s belt shushes them with static, then a voice says, “Unit 4, report. Over.”

Buck frowns. 

“Shit. What do I say?” Steve asks Barbara, Bucky, the universe.

Barbara’s voice is tight in his ear. “I don’t know. Confirm or stay silent, Steve. It’s your call.”

“Get looking,” he directs Buck, then says into the radio, “Reporting. Over.”

There’s a pause, then, “Status? Over.”

“Clear. Over,” Steve guesses dubiously as he hurries past Bucky to find the R’s. 

The silence stretches for longer this time, but eventually the voice says, “10-4. Over.”

Steve sighs in relief. Crisis averted. For now.

He finds the R’s in a rusting grey cabinet, but it’s only Ra-Ri. Next. This one’s locked but he tears it open easily. He’s not Bionic Barnes but he’s no slouch. 

“Got my Dad’s,” Buck calls. “Any luck on your end?”

Steve’s staring. There’re dozens of green hanging files stuffed with manilla envelopes labeled with neat nametags, so it’s easy to see. His isn’t there. But his father’s is. 

“Come on, man.” Bucky’s voice is much nearer this time. “We gotta get going.” He stops even with Steve’s shoulder and peers in. “Where’s yours?”

Steve shakes his head and pulls out the envelope labeled ‘Rogers, Joseph’. Buck glances at him, shuttered concern on his face, then tugs at his arm. “Come on.”

They look briefly for the rest of their team, but Sam is the only one with a file. Nat and the Maximoffs must be truly off the grid, and Steve’s profoundly relieved. Safer to be invisible. 

They don’t bother closing the door - it’s mangled too badly to fit back into the frame - before retracing their path up the stairs, envelopes tucked under their arms.

If either of them were normal they would’ve been panting from exertion, but because they’re both freaks Steve hears the crunch of wheels outside the building instead. “Shit. We’ve got company.”

Bucky’s eyes widen and he picks up the pace. “How do you know?”

“I hear ‘em,” Steve bites out, pushing even faster.

“How is that possible? We’re -”

Jesus. Now he wants to talk? “Later.” 

They make it to the ground level before he hears footsteps and voices. A rough male voice grunts, “How did you know?” 

The responding guard says, “Missed check in.”

Fuck. Steve must’ve said something to tip them off. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he can’t help but chuckle to himself. Typical Rogers, always saying the wrong fucking thing. “We need another way out.”

Buck doesn’t slow, but Steve catches on that they’re taking a different route, up another flight of stairs.

“Wha-”

“We’ll have to jump,” Buck grunts, slamming a door open. 

“Alright then.” There’s not much to be done about it. There are at least five combatants downstairs not including the recently revived guards.

The wing they’re in now is all offices, door after door of cloudy glass with titles stamped on them. Bucky breaks down the one at the end of the hall and Steve observes cheekily, “You’re being awfully hard on doors today,”

Buck rolls his eyes and pushes past the desk piled messily with boxes to open the window with a bang. “Roll when you hit.”

“I’m sending Sam up the maintenance road,” Barbara’s voice says. “Just get a mile south and we’ll have you.”

“You first,” Steve grunts, and Bucky laughs in his face beautiful and fearless.

“Yeah right.”

It’s too damn bad Steve’s so in his head about it. If he weren’t so distracted, he might’ve avoided getting shot.

\--

Bucky shoves him through the door of the apartment with a bit more vigor than Steve thinks is fair. Yeah, he should’ve been more careful, but he’s a quick healer, and it’s a clean through and through in the meat of his upper arm. Not like there’s any organ damage. 

“Easy on the goods,” he protests but Bucky just snarls, “Get in the bathroom and take your shirt off. 

“Buck -” he protests, attempting levity of tone but Bucky’s not amused. 

“Fucking go, Steve.”

It’s surprising how much his malice hurts. Almost more than a bullet wound. Almost.

Steve obeys though, kicking off his boots and pants into a pile in the corner under the sink, then gets to work on the overshirt, the kevlar, but the long sleeved tee ends up giving him trouble. He’s been struggling with it for a minute, finally getting it over his head when he’s then promptly stuck in the collar. He hears Buck enter and throw a few things on the counter - something fabric, and his phone... Steve sighs, resigning himself to dwelling in the neck of his shirt indefinitely when cool hands grip the hem and pull, up and away. 

“Freedom,” Steve jokes hoarsely. Bucky throws the shirt onto the existing heap of clothing. He won’t make eye contact and for a moment, Steve’s back in his mom’s apartment, skinny and busted on the edge of the kitchen table trying to keep himself from kissing his best friend. Some things never change, he supposes.

Buck jerks Steve around with one hand to access the hole in his arm. “Don't move,” he says, and Steve looks down to see Buck’s palms hovering over the entry and exit holes, trembling ever so slightly. 

It begins to burn, less like fire and more like the muscle ache from sitting still too long, or the itch in your jaw when you’re starving and smell something delicious. A necessary ache. Steve groans.

Bucky jerks, startled at the sound, but he never looks away from the injury, from the healing so powerful Steve swears he can almost hear the tissue knitting together. Dark blood trickles down, forced outwards. Within a minute Steve’s staring at what’s left of the gunshot hole, emptying of copper and filling with mended flesh ‘til the only thing left are two little discs of scar tissue. 

Buck lets his hands fall leaden to his sides the moment he’s finished.

“You’re amazing,” Steve breathes, prodding at his skin. It’s sensitive and a little sore but no more than a bruise. He wipes away the leftover blood with his shirt soaked in hot water from the faucet.

Bucky gives a quiet, “Thanks,” and Steve thinks his eyes look beautifully warm and strangely dark, but when he notices Steve staring, his expression closes off. He gathers his shit from the counter and leaves the room calling, “I can go pick up Jay if you want.” Distancing.

Steve follows out into the chill of the living room, clothing clutched in weary fists. He should never have made Buck go back to that place. Should never have allowed him to waste his strength healing Steve’s dumb ass. “I’m sorry,” he stutters.

“Sorry?” Buck sounds surprised. Steve’s heart breaks.

“I shouldn’t have… I should’ve figured out a way you didn’t have to go.” He throws his boots towards the front door and his clothes into a pile in the hall. There’s beer in the fridge, thank god, not that it’ll do him much good, but the ritual is soothing. “You have every right to be upset. It wasn’t fair of me to ask.”

He’s expecting quiet protest, that thing Bucky does when he’s trying to convince Steve everything’s fine, a practice he’s maintained since they were riding with training wheels. What he gets is a growl carrying enough anger that he tosses the beer back into the fridge so he has all hands available to defend himself. It’d be well deserved if Buck wanted to beat his ass, but the guy is freaky strong and Steve’s foolishly still hoping that a few bruises and a healed bullet wound will be tonight’s only casualties. 

“You th-th-think I’m mad at you for - for…” In collecting himself, Bucky crunches the edge of the counter top with his left hand, leaving a dent. It’s a testament to how upset he is that he doesn’t try to apologize. 

The kitchen is starting to close in, and distantly, Steve acknowledges that this panic attack is probably well-overdue. Maybe he’ll crack right open here in the half-light of a kitchen and it’ll set him free somehow. Or maybe Buck’ll finally leave. He’s a smart guy. He was going to figure it out sooner or later. 

“Steve? Steve!”

A warm body pins him against the counter and Bucky’s concern is suddenly inches from his own. Steve lets his gaze flit across that beautiful face, too existentially drained to play coy. 

Buck stares. Whispers, strangely relieved, “You really don’t know…”

“Know?”

“I’m not mad at you for asking me to go. I’m mad you got yourself shot! Christ!” He rubs a hand over his face. “You keep trying to take care of me, and your head’s so damn far up your own ass that you don’t even notice it’s not a one sided thing! You’re my best fucking friend. If I lost you again, now, I mean - fuck. You have any idea how bad that would hurt?”

“Yeah.” Steve lets the word drop onto the kitchen floor, soft and dry and bitter. “I think I do.”

“Then you should know how bad I need you safe! Jesus! How many times are you gonna break my heart, Stevie?”

Steve freezes.

“What?”

The alacrity with which Buck transitions from furious to blushing is downright impressive. He steps away, letting in winter chill against Steve’s skin but looks up through dark lashes like he’s begging, like he’d rather be closer than farther, like maybe they’ve been falling together all this time, instead of falling apart. 

“Bucky? Dad?” Jamie’s tiny voice echoes in the entryway. Ollie and Art, dropping her off. They must’ve heard the ruckus from next door. 

Steve sighs so deep his sternum cracks. “Hey Sweet Pea,” he smiles.

“Daddy. You got hurt.” 

“I’m ok baby girl.”

She frowns at him as she reaches up for a hug and he accepts it all, the disapproval and the embrace. 

Artie drops off Jamie's backpack in the foyer and waves a sleepy good night, but Ollie says, “Steve. Can I speak with you?”

“Sure.” He passes Jamie off to Buck, not being particularly careful to keep their bodies from brushing together. Even the metal of Bucky's prosthetic is warm. Steve wants to melt into him. 

Ollie’s leaning against the wall outside their apartment, arms folded, silvery hair twisted up into a crown. 

“What's up?”

“You should tell him.”

Steve blinks at her. “I - what?”

“You should tell him you're in love with him.” She brushes a finger over one of the closed bullet scars, adding, “This is good work, this mending.”

“How…”

She laughs like a song. “Child. I’m more than a business owner.”

“I know that,” he replies. 

She observes him quizzically. “Do you?”

There’s always been something ethereal about the sisters, an otherness that simultaneously sets him on edge and puts him at ease, but he's never had a name for it, nor the desire to do so, perhaps nervous at what he’ll find if he really digs. He thinks back to that day at the Market brief weeks ago and says, “I guess not. Not really. Jamie does, though, doesn't she?” 

Ollie’s expression softens. “Yes. Your daughter is … Remarkable. We have not seen someone like her in more moons than you've seen in your life.” The cadence of her voice is rich and ageless, and for an instant Steve has an image of vaulted marble ceilings and golden stringed instruments, and then he's back, squinting his eyes in the tired glow of the hallway lights. 

Ollie nods, as if he'd answered a question correctly, and pats his arm. “Go be with your family. And Steve?” He turns back to her. “Talk to your boy.”

“He’s not mine, Ol’.”

She groans, surprisingly deep for someone so lithe. “Steve. There hasn’t been a day in the history of your existence that boy hasn’t been part of your heart, and you of his. No,” she interrupts, vehemently when he opens his mouth to argue. “Go. Home.”

\--

Steve kind of feels like crying, but in the absolute best way. 

There’s even less room at BG’s table this afternoon because Artie and Ollie have joined them, perched precariously on a trunk Bucky carried down from the attic. Natasha couldn’t be bothered with real clothing, and due to the lack of room she’s curled up on Sam’s lap in boyshorts and a tee so giant it’s doubling as a dropcloth for runaway pepperoni. Sam, for his part, looks so delighted about this turn of events Steve’s a little concerned he might bust something, but figures it’d be as good a way to go out as any. A ceaseless ramble of foreign language runs like water through the glasses and cutlery, the Maximoffs debating something serious enough for Russian but not quite so serious that Wanda doesn’t spend the better part of the conversation doodling on Pietro’s arm while Barbara looks on in amusement. 

Jamie is sitting on Bucky’s lap, but the right side of her body has migrated far enough onto Steve that the men have just crushed their chairs and legs together to keep her from wiggling through the gap as she chats animatedly with Nat.

“How was your adventure at the park?”

“I made a friend, and we’re going to play later this week!” 

“I bet you run circles around her.”

Jamie knows it’s a figure of speech and still says the best thing. “I dunno. She’s better at catch than me.”

It’s a work lunch - they’re going to dig through the files Steve and Bucky rescued from the compound as a unit to maximize efficiency. It doesn’t feel like work though, not when Pietro keeps sneakily rolling chocolate covered raisins to Jamie from across the table, not when Sam is making borderline inappropriate puns into the back of Natasha’s neck, not when Barbara won’t stop grinning out over the familial sprawl with fondness and approval. 

“How’s that gunshot wound holding up, Rogers?” Nat snarks through a mouthful. 

He bares his teeth in a messy grin and shrugs. “I’ll live.”

“Your boyfriend patch you up?”

A week ago the comment might have set him on edge, but he notices Bucky very purposefully not tensing his body, staying neutral and expressionless, and the guarded expression hurts worse than the mockery he expected. 

“Eh, I keep him around for a reason, you know?”

“Other than the sex?” Sam ribs and Steve feels his cheeks redden a little, but takes it in stride. 

“First of all, my daughter is literally right here, and second of all, s-e-x can be very restorative I’ll have you know.”

Bucky snorts, “Restorative, my ass.”

“What’s that you want me to do to your -” Steve cuts himself off but Jamie sighs, put upon, and says, “Dad. Pietro made me memorize chemical compounds last week. I can spell sex.

“Oh god,” he sighs, dropping his face in his palm. “I’ve created a monster. Actually,” he accuses, jabbing a finger at Pietro. “You’ve created a monster.”

“No, sir,” Pietro grins. “That would be all you.”

“I dunno,” Barbara muses, licking sauce from her fingers. “I think Bucky’s done some good work towards that end as well.”

“Why thank you,” the dark haired man says, and Steve can feel his ribs shake through their bodies as he chuckles. “I’m honored.”

Pizza gets eaten, the table gets cleared, everyone collects their beverages and blankets, and they pile into the living room. Steve has nestled into a huddle on the floor in front of the couch, burning his tongue on perfectly tar-like coffee when Buck drops down beside him, coffee of his own in one hand and laptop in the other. Without a word he untucks the corner of the blanket Steve’s wrapped in and slides it over his own shoulders, wriggling close enough that they fit, cocooned together in patchwork. 

“Oh, yeah,” Steve grunts. “Help yourself.” He can hear the smile in his own voice.

No doubt Bucky can, too, but he doesn’t look up from his laptop. “Will do, thanks.” 

“I’ve digitized the files,” Barbara says, ignoring them. “And sent them to everyone, but I think it might be wise to split up the content. Steve and Buck, take your people. Sam and Nat go through his. Wanda, Pietro keep up the research. Ol, Art, could you take a crack at some of this PR bullshit? The referendum’s coming up fast, and we’ve got work to do.” 

Ollie nods, sending sunkissed silver locks over her shoulder, and holds out a hand towards Steve. His laptop flies through the air and into her grasp. The whole room shifts.

“What the -”

“Did you just -”

“Hey!” Sam says. “I didn’t know -”

“How did you -”

“You never said,” Steve manages. 

She shrugs. “It’s...complicated. We’ll talk. Later.” She fixes him with a stare that sinks beneath his skin and into his bones. He shudders, cold but not frightened, and for a moment she seems larger, brighter, and so fucking heart wrenchingly old that Steve lets out a choked noise. 

No one else seems to notice. 

Buck slides his computer across to rest where they’re knees are bumping together. “Here. Share. For now.” And just like that, the room turns from a pile of grown goofballs in pizza stained pj’s to efficient, terrifying machines. 

It’s reminiscent of the most ornate spider’s web - dialogue thrown out across the room at varying volumes depending on pertinence, notes from one group taken and contextualized by another, ideas flying gossamer and brilliant between brains working impossibly quickly. Barbara is the ringleader, the conductor, softly directing the flow of research until most of the pertinent information from the files has been catalogued and the group has sunk into focus so deep it’s meditative, eyes flicking through the documentation, consuming, assembling. 

There’s frequent mention of genealogy in all the files. Both Steve and Buck stumbled across notes hypothesizing whether or not their grandparents had been Mutts, and no one seemed to know, but there were just as many mentions of the boys themselves, though not by name. “Sons”, “Offspring”, and the like, predictions, suggestions for what should be done once the two of them presented...Steve shudders. The thought of taking children away for closer observation is a little too close to home now that he has a child of his own. 

They were good men, Joe Rogers and George Barnes, complex and flawed, but full of heart. Even cold, factual documentation revealed kind idiosyncrasies. George was quiet, and Joseph larger than life, but their friendship was a gift to everyone through the years, especially in the military. 

And that’s when methodical scrolling turns to wide eyes and clenched fists and hearts beating a slower cadence, wading through grief. Their dads had been heroes. 

They’d trained at a facility not far from where Steve and Buck had grown up, a massive complex that had been destroyed shortly after the war ended, and there were countless anecdotes of Barnes and Rogers Senior staying behind, up late, after their shifts to help other trainees to the extent that some of their commander got pissed, concerned that the selfless gestures would get them killed, or worse, captured. At one point the lead tech tried to separate them into different units. Joseph threw the guy’s car off the seventh story of the parking garage. Steve smiles. So that’s where the temper comes from.

They’d been together at the beginning, drafted into a segregated training facility. They were together at the end, dragging unconscious bodies from a humvee that became a bomb when the gas leak caught. 

Jamie’s crawling into his lap. “Daddy,” she says quietly.

“Baby.”

“Don’t be sad.” 

Bucky’s watching him with almost tangible intensity as Steve sniffs hard and curls his arms around her. “Ok, sweet girl.”

He thinks that’s the end of it when she adds, “They’re not you.”

“What?”

“Grandpa and George. They’re not you and Bucky. Not everyone dies at the beginning, Daddy. Sometimes they get an end.”

Steve’s whole heart collapses in on itself in one graceless lurch just as Artie mutters an emphatic, “Fuck,” distracting him.

“What?”

In response, she turns up the TV, the news that’s been murmuring in the background for the better part of an hour. 

“Reports confirm that the Mutts held in captivity were used as weapons and intelligence at the behest of the corporation. At least twenty four murders were conducted, as well as countless thefts of personal and intellectual property, political manipulation, and more.”

“Fuck,” Barbara echoes, and Bucky’s eyes widen too large for his head, white glaring from around the blue as he takes a breath so large it displaces his clavicle. 

“We had no choice,” he grits out, and Ollie nods. 

“Of course not, sweet boy. You were captive.”

“They won’t believe that, though,” he says to his knees, shifting uncomfortably.

Artie shrugs. “Eventually they will.”

“How do you know?” Sam challenges, and Steve startles up to realize that he and Buck are not the only ones in the room riddled with carefully concealed bullet holes, and everyone’s looking to the sisters for answers. 

“My boy,” Artie says, a curt warning, but Ollie glances over quickly, eyes flashing an impossible gold color and lays a hand on her arm.

The room dissolves before Steve’s eyes. Technically, it’s all there - the couch, the chairs, the TV - all present, but fuzzy. The humans in the room freeze, suspended in time; Wanda outlined in red energy, and Pietro, silver. Sam’s wings look impossibly large, Natasha’s musculature is brazen and fierce and cut like onyx atop her ivory skin, and Barbara can’t possibly be, but she’s standing behind herself, legs strong and sure, a second body overlaying her first. 

Steve feels as if he’s melted into the couch, or maybe through space, as Artie says, “You have already given so much, but it is not over yet.” She sounds different - rich and bold and ethereal, Ollie even more so as she speaks and music fills the air. 

“You are already more,” she says softly. “Than anyone could’ve hoped. All of you. My Dear Hearts…” Emotion tightens her tone as she gazes at Buck and Steve, and tiny Jamie. “You’re the end and the beginning.”

“It feels awfully heavy,” Jamie murmurs, catching Steve’s attention. She’s a bursting sun, a supernova, a universe within a body shining too bright and hot to look at, but he only has a breath to gape at her before Ollie’s voice trumpets into the shimmering space. 

“You are not alone,” and Steve knows it, feels the truth of the family surrounding him.

“Nor unarmed,” Artie adds, and as she speaks his body warms, like his blood is moving quicker, his heart beating stronger, like he’s healing from a wound he never had. Keener sight. Faster reflexes. Honing and advancing the miracle of his body into something greater. 

Jamie seems to be feeling it too, eyes closed and hands folded across her little stomach, smiling contentedly. 

Steve finally turns to make sure Bucky’s alright, and the last thing he sees before the haze fades is purest blue gleaming back with more affection than Steve thinks he can bear. 

“You’d think the motherfuckers would be a little more thoughtful with their commentary,” Sam is saying. “They know the effect this’ll have.”

Barbara’s nodding along. “Everyone’s got an end game.”

Steve glances around, only a little frantic. Buck looks calm and relaxed, still scrolling through documents, Pietro and Wanda are arguing about something in a language that is neither English nor Russian, but in the pause before he starts worrying about his sanity, Jamie pats his hand and smiles up at him knowingly.

“Some people aren’t ready to remember, Daddy.”

He stares down at her as the wave of understanding crests over him. “You’re...more, aren’t you, sweet girl.”

She bobs her little head in a gesture indicating a half truth. “But also just the same as you. I know things I shouldn’t, but I’m still a kid. I get scared of the dark, and I get so mad when I don’t understand things...Just because I’m different doesn’t mean I’m not yours.”

No one comments on Steve crying quietly into his daughter’s hair for a few minutes. Maybe they’re giving the Rogers’s space, but Steve wonders as he catches Ollie’s eye, if maybe they didn’t notice at all.

\--

When Steve wakes in the morning, there’s a hum. He lies there, aware of every fiber in his sheets touching his skin and the way the air is slightly cool in the room, and he listens.

He can hear Jamie’s snuffled breathing as she rummages in her drawers getting ready for her day, and his phone buzzing as it charges, and the tick of Buck’s prosthetic on the edge of the coffee table when he rolls over too quickly. Traffic on the far away pavement and the blood in Steve’s body and Artie’s coffee maker next door - it’s effervescent. It’s alive.

On autopilot, his body walks itself into the studio and doesn’t even bother to close the door. 

Most of the vibrant colors in his oil pastel set are still completely intact, preserved by years of shadow art and nighttime sketches, but Steve unearths them now and dumps the whole tray onto the floor. 

Thick pastel paper is pinned roughly into the very wall, and everything falls into place quickly once he finds the right hue - something verdant for the background.

After years of darkness, so much color in his art is overwhelming, but so is everything else these days and he doesn’t shy away from it. He’s recreating the most painful place in his whole world, but today he’s going to make it beautiful. Today he’s going to return it to rest, let it go, give it back. With the sound of Bucky’s soft inhale and exhale buoying his mind, he’s going to forgive.

Layering the foreground takes some doing, rust and dirt in with leaves and rushing water. Instead of darkness, though, he sends rays of sun dappling down over the tree cover, dancing gold to play among the darker lines. The light caresses the old trestle gently. Steve puts life into that forest, a deer and some birds and the rushing blue of the river hinting at glimmering silver fish below. Alive. They’re alive.

“Steve.” Just one word. Just Buck, saying his name like he’s something precious, something important. Just like always. “That’s incredible.”

“Thanks,” Steve murmurs, not looking back. “I’m trying to make it beautiful again.”

“It was an accident,” Buck says softly. “You know that, right?” 

“Of course.” It feels terribly vulnerable to be on display like this, inside out, heart so bold and blatant on the page. No one else has been in this room for years, and now this sleepy giant of a man is casually yawning in the doorway, filling every inch without even meaning to. Maybe Buck catches the apprehension on Steve’s face because he disappears for a moment, and there’s rustling in the living room before he comes back with a stack of something in his hands. He sinks down next to Steve on the floor.

“I’ve been writing,” he offers.

Steve just stares, at his sleep-mussed hair, his rough hand, the reflection of metal fingers on the notebooks near his knee, the crinkles near his eyes. 

“Anything. Everything.” Bucky’s eyes focused intently on the bound paper near his knee, but he speaks clearly, with no sense of hesitation. “I didn’t write, inside. Not on paper. But there would always be these phrases floating in my head, words that went well together, sounds that brought things to life. I didn’t trust them. So I waited. And now…” He gestures tired to the books and huffs a laugh. “Now I can’t stop.”

He finally lifts his eyes, hesitant blue flitting across Steve’s expression. Steve lets him. There’s nothing to find there but fondness. 

The sun is comforting through the window, warm on one half of each of their bodies, opposite sides, parts of a whole, and the air seems more charged than normal. Steve breathes it in and lets it out for Buck to take. 

“Stevie…” he whispers. 

The knock on the door is like an electric shock around Steve’s brain and he jerks away, smiling ruefully. “Duty calls.”

Jamie’s going to spend the day with her friend from the park. Natasha keeps harassing him about how she needs socialization to be ready for kindergarten, and should probably have some friends her own age. Begrudgingly, Steve can admit that she’s right, but it’s Jamie’s enthusiasm for her friend that has him smiling instead of fidgeting nervously as he helps her zip up her backpack.

“You know our number.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“And you can come home whenever.”

“I know.”

“And -”

“Dad,” she huffs. “I’ll be fine, and so will you,” she grins softly, message received, and she’s bounding out the door. Steve manages a wave to the mother waiting in their doorway, Ms. Baurle, who’s babysitting today, when Buck says, “Steve.” The door closes. “Barbara’s on the phone.” He presses speakerphone and then BG’s voice is clear in the room. 

“So I’ve been going through footage from the facility raid. There’s a fucking milenium of data on here and I wasn’t really expecting to find much, but…”

“But?”

Barbara’s voice hesitates. “No matter what happens Rogers, I know you’re a good man. And I need you to remember that too.”

“Ok…?”

It’s obviously not the response she was hoping for, but she continues, “I emailed you a file.”

The security camera footage is grainy, but it’s obvious that the video is from outside a bar somewhere. Steve thinks it looks vaguely familiar. And then familiarity is the fucking last thing he’s hoping for because his own face appears in the frame. 

He looks blazed out of his mind, but also strangely coherent, steady on his feet with fog in his eyes. He slips out the door behind the tall shadow of a man, singularly focused, and Bucky hisses a breath.

“I don’t remember this…” Steve says slowly. 

“You’re under.”

“Under?”

Bucky looks like he’s having trouble breathing. He doesn’t answer. 

The camera angle shifts and they watch Steve travel down an alley and into an empty lot lit only by the feeble back porch lights of the businesses nestled on the other side. They watch sure and certain footsteps. They watch Steve beat the tall man into the blacktop, ‘til his hands are covered in both of their blood. They watch him walk out the other end of the passageway, flexing his knuckles. 

There are voices in the room. Bucky, on the phone with Barbara, but Steve can’t hear the specifics through the blood rushing in his ears. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Too many times he’d found a place to land only to rediscover every wound and weakness and worthless facet of his piecemeal soul. He didn’t know there was anything left to lose. 

“Stevie. Steve. Hey! Let go.” Buck’s voice finally cracks into his brain, distantly but enough that Steve looks down at the piece of desk he’s just broken off with clenched fists. The wood and steel has sliced neatly into his palms and he’s bleeding onto the floor in fat, heavy drops around the shard of desk. He lets it clatter to the floor, then follows it down. “Steve!”

“You should go, Buck,” he says heavily. 

“Shut the fuck up and let me see your hands.”

“No I - you shouldn’t be around me.” Steve looks up, pleading. “Who knows what else I’ve done. I didn’t even -” His hands are shaking. “How many times did I -”

“Thirty seven,” Bucky declares to the blood on the ground. “Now let me see your hands.”

“Sorry?”

“Not you. Me. Zoe tried to mention it, and I stopped her. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Thirty seven times I went under. Thirty seven times I disappeared into that fog and couldn’t pull myself out either. Now, let. Me see. Your goddamn hands.”

Steve’s palms offer themselves up without his knowledge or permission and Buck accepts them without regard for the mess. The silence is about to smear the pieces of Steve’s shattered heart around his insides when Bucky says softly to the room, “I told you - I dreamed about you in there. Forgiving me for what I’d done. Telling me to get the hell back up. You need to do the same.”

He pulls Steve’s hands into his lap to rest on warm knees then hovers his own fingers over the wounds. The heat begins again, familiar and strange all at once, and Steve groans at the feeling. Buck makes a raw noise too. 

“Dunno why you listened to me,” Steve scoffs. “It was just a dream.”

Buck snarls, smacking his hands down over Steve’s and squeezing hard, searing agony even as the healing flows more freely between touching skin. 

“Because I miss the brilliant, shitty, brave idiot you’ve been trying to lose! You were never meant to be this perfect specimen Steve! Some sweet talking, beefcake, Mr. Fix It, father of the year. You’re a mess! You always have been. You sleep like shit and cuss like a sailor and take stupid risks and you fight! All the time, for people and causes that deserve it. Even if you’ve forgotten, I haven’t! That’s who you really are, and I’ve been in love with him since I was six!”

Steve stares, open mouthed and completely still for the first and only time in almost three decades on this planet, then tackles him backwards, pressing Buck into the ground and kissing him so hard his head knocks against the floor. 

Steve been dying to kiss Bucky for so long, fantasized a million different scenarios, and none of them hold a candle to the reality of the slide of their tongues or the hitched breaths or the way Bucky smells this close, breathing him in, more familiar that Steve’s own soul, and twice as dear. The only home he’s ever known. 

Bucky’s solid muscle, hips and ribs and shoulders biting out beneath Steve’s palms, and he feels so good that Steve has to take a break to bury his face in the silk of Buck’s neck. Immediately, Bucky rolls his body up, rough and strong, matching Steve’s freakish strength with ease. 

“That all you got, punk?” Buck grins, only a little manic, and Steve, for all the overwhelming feeling, can’t help but pull back to return it. 

“No.” He ignores his cell phone buzzing on the table across the room in favor of crashing their mouths together again and rolling his hips. Bucky’s getting hard, he can feel it as he’s shoved onto his back and Bucky crawls atop him, pinning his biceps against the floor.

“You goddamn idiot,” he mutters fondly, biting into Steve’s neck for too gently to leave a mark.

“You gonna keep my like this, Buck?” He squirms, struggling up to touch, grip, do some biting of his own, but he can’t budge an inch. “Hold me down so I can’t move? You gonna make me do whatever you want? Gonna fuck me Buck?”

“Christ, Stevie,” he gasps, hunching down to bring their faces closer together. “Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

His cell goes off again but Buck is grinding down against him, flushed and gorgeous and Steve’s not about to ask him to get up.

“Or you gonna come just like this? Look so desperate for me. You want me?”

“More than anything,” Buck whispers, nipping his bottom lip. “You know that.”

“Do I?” he’s teasing, except for the part where he’s obviously not, and Buck catches it.

“Yes,” he breathes into Steve’s mouth. “Yes. I want every part of you. Clear?"

Steve nods, too happy to breathe. “Crystal.”

“You done sassing? Or am I gonna have to fuck that smirk off your face?”

Wriggling mischievously Steve says, “What do you think?”

His voicemail tone pings and Buck rolls his eyes and off Steve’s body, groaning. “We should see who that is.”

Steve huffs as he walks on his knees over to the coffee table. “Jeez. Who’d have thought you’d be the responsible one in the relationship?”

“Uh, everyone!” Buck protests far too emphatically and Steve chuckles, pressing “Listen” and bringing the phone to his ear. 

The tinny timbre of recording does nothing to assuage the terror in Ms. Baurle’s voice. “Steve, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know -” She pauses, heaving a breath that catches every vocal chord on the way down. “Jamie. She ran off. She’s gone.”

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me at seasless.tumblr.com <3


End file.
